


his hands, which have known eden

by botanyclub



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist AU, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mildly Dubious Consent, Shameless Smut, but also knowing me i might accidentally write plot, my self-indulgence knows no bounds, there is no plot i'm just being horny on main
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botanyclub/pseuds/botanyclub
Summary: They say the Blythe boy's hands are the price for his loneliness; God’s way of making amends for shrouding him in so much death and necrosis. They say he can capture sunlight and temperature and even silence in a stroke, characterizing on canvas his subjects’ very essence and soul. He paints landscapes and still-life — all the things he knows best. Because Gilbert cannot paint what his hands cannot touch.And what Gilbert wants to paint more than anything is Anne.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 90
Kudos: 317





	1. ophelia

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mildly dubious consent in the sense that Anne is still very much concerned with upholding propriety, but also very much enjoys it when Gilbert touches her anywhere. Our golden boy, as always, is madly into whatever Anne is willing to give him (spoiler alert: everything). And while explicit consent is always the best and hottest and required in real life situations, it unfortunately does not figure into the themes I want to explore in this fic.

Avonlea is known for very few things, being a sleepy nowhere town that doubles as a farming community in the middle of Prince Edward Island, sandwiched in between Carmody and White Sands like a forgotten middle child. Even in its beauty, Avonlea is not singular; the coastlines lay clear and untouched by the wild magnetism of change and erosion, flora and fauna abundant but unvaried, while the seasons crawl by in humdum monotony. The same thirty odd families inhabit the land across multiple generations, birth and death synonymous, their whole lives tied to one particular patch of earth. Avonlea, thus, is like a village suspended in time, immune to modernity and other corruptible influences, which suits its one notable exception perfectly fine, having made a name for himself capturing mundanity such as this. 

They say the Blythe boy's hands are the price for his loneliness; God’s way of making amends for shrouding him in so much death and necrosis. Pestilence springs from Gilbert’s footfall like daisies, a field for every sibling dead and buried in his wake. “But he can capture sunlight and temperature and even silence in a stroke,” the villagers admire and whisper about John’s youngest from afar. Such mortal spirits cannot hope to commune with such genius; not with the indifference that being a part of polite society implies. And so, by and large, Gilbert comes and goes alone, unimpeded in his course and unbothered by those around him.

He lives in a house on an orchard by himself, lined with trees of ambrosias and wine saps and beacons; spends most days outdoors getting a feel for the land, then sequestering himself away to recreate his learnings at night. He rarely goes to town and even rarer hosts guests. The most activity he (and the whole of Avonlea) gets is when his broker comes to town to facilitate a sale, although there are rumours that even Gilbert’s half-formed sketches are enough to fetch a King’s ransom on the market. What he spends this fortune on is anybody’s guess and by anybody, Rachel Lynde would like to say that she is more than up for the task.

This is as much intel as Anne could gather in her three weeks at Green Gables, temporary boarding until she can secure more permanent housing elsewhere. She has taken up a teaching position at the nearby school, long days preparing geometry lessons rather than lamenting its name, and to pupils who occupy almost all of her time. But still, Anne makes it a point to walk past the Blythe Orchard twice a day, once in the early morning and again before dusk, peeking over the fence to catch a glimpse of the artist she’s heard so little about.

She only ever sees his profile on Sunday mornings at Church, a dark head of curls, immobile, out of the corner of her eye. He sits to himself despite the row of Barry’s to his left, most days blocked by the tall patriarch during service, but Anne has seen enough to observe the aristocratic slope of his nose and a sharp jawline easing into a particularly splendid chin. He is handsome in a way that is simultaneously boyish and somber, like how a child’s laughter in isolation can be indescribably haunting. But Anne notes these things the same way she would note the sky being blue or catalogues a cloud on the horizon, indifferently and aloof. She has formed no particular attachment to Gilbert outside of pure curiosity, her strongest personality trait but the one that bears her the most grief. Qualifiers aside, even Anne can’t deny how romantic is the notion of being a near-recluse artist, burdened by brilliance and cast aside by the community. Ruby Gillis is often silly, but in this Anne agrees: “There is no boy more sad or tragically handsome than Gilbert Blythe.” 

He fascinates her greatly, being a man of dubious repute. Although Anne respects the line drawn in the sand and keeps her distance, she can’t help but wonder (as she does frequently and with great vigor) after his standing in Avonlea. So in compromise, Anne takes long, looping paths by his orchard every day, observing the nature around her which he has captured in paintings that hang in prestigious galleries around the world. Anne saw a landscape piece of his once, passing through Halifax on her way to PEI, but before his acclaim caught up to him and the exhibit was still free. She stood in front of the painting for hours, feeling the golden rays of sunshine across her skin, the gentle breeze whistling through treetops, and the heavy humidity signifying the early onset of rain, until closing hour creeped around and she was finally asked to leave. It shocked her to see that same sight on her way home from school, perfectly depicted but somehow poorer in person, none of the whimsy or life Gilbert’s hands had bestowed. A different picture of a different day.

But on this particular day, Anne reaches out to shield her face from the sun, starting to sink against the late summer sky. “Celestial body,” she laments. “Why must you shine so bright?” Only a warm silence greets her, which seems like an acknowledgement all the same. 

Both Cuthberts went off to see a panto in Carmody, so Anne takes her time meandering knowing no one is expecting her back soon. She is only sans corset with Marilla gone for the day, who would certainly not allow any boarder of hers to flounce even the semblance of propriety. Once Anne moves out and establishes herself more firmly on the Island, there will no doubt be several more rules she will conspire to break and break often. But because she is not quite 19 and unmarried besides, Anne will break just one more for the day, feet making the familiar trek towards a stream two hundred paces to her left and hidden at the base of a drop-off which Anne has learned to expertly maneuver. 

Her footing is sure as she scrambles down the side of the cliff, fingers clutching at buttresses and handholds eroded slowly by nature. Once she reaches the bottom and takes a cursory glance around, more out of habit than anything else and having done this twice before without being caught, Anne quickly strips down to just her chemise and drawers. Folds her petticoat and clothes and sets them gently to the side, boots and stockings next, unlaced and peeled off so she can wiggle her toes experimentally in the water, cool and refreshing just as she remembers and expects.

She only wades in far enough for the water to reach her midriff, by no means a strong swimmer but confident in the shallower depths. Like this, Anne imagines all sorts of different scenes, of shipwrecks and treasures and the Nereids of the sea, mind whirring like maple seeds as she, too, dances in rotation. She pictures herself conjuring magic and letting the power build up in her limbs, the force of the currents like the blood running through her veins. She twirls _once_ , _twice_ , and a _third_ time before her foot meets rock and she slips and falls backwards, flailing all the way down. The wind is knocked out of her as she crashes and crashes, water tension tempering the impact of her fall but disallowing Anne from regaining any sense of balance. She thrashes wildly trying to get her bearings straight, gulps of air and stream taken in equal, painful measure. Uselessly, she feels the waters around her start to actively pick up speed, bearing her away the closer she drifts towards the center. Anne drowns and emerges in stretches that last for close to an eternity, lungs burning to expel waterlog in cycles that feel closer and closer to death. 

She breathes and succumbs, again and again, until eventually, without knowing how she does it or to which deity she should thank, Anne manages to find anchor on the passing pier of a bridge, clings to it desperately with all of the strength she has left. Precious air rattles and burns like fire in her chest, shaky and wet, but worth it for the way she is able to slowly regain her senses. 

“Have I been forsaken?” she desperately wants to cry. She knows from the general air of disuse that this bridge is not much frequented and it may be long hours or even days before a kind soul wanders through. Already, she is trembling like a leaf in the wind, exhausted and unable to do much more than float.

“Could it be? Ophelia? Before my very eyes?” Anne is startled out of her wretchedness by the arrival of Gilbert Blythe. He looks like something out of a fairytale, only in a rowboat instead of on horseback. 

His hands hold steady to the structural scaffolding above, exposing a set of well-defined arms despite lifting nothing heavier than what she presumes to be a canvas and paintbrush most days. In fact, those same materials stick out from beneath the tan tarp beside him, while the rest of Gilbert’s rowboat remains tidy and bare. He must have finished painting for the day and is making the journey home.

“Ophelia?” he prompts, when she remains unresponsive. Gilbert’s eyes are an excellent shade of hazel, like murky waters over algal blooms.

She shakes her head. “My name is Anne, actually.” 

“Ann,” he grins and repeats it back with a nod.

“No, it’s _Anne._ _With an E_.” She doesn’t mean to sound huffy, but it comes off that way anyway.

“Well may I ask what it is you’re doing out here, Miss _Anne with an E_?” 

“Isn’t it obvious? Fishing for lake trout, of course.”

Her wry tone makes Gilbert laugh, head thrown back while his shoulders shake trying to rein in his amusement. Anne almost likes the sound of it, if it weren't directed at her expense. The artist is much more roguish up-close, dimpled in a way a boy on the verge of manhood shouldn't be. It causes an unusual stirring in her chest.

Anne bristles and says “If you are to laugh any louder or any longer, I’ll be forced to charge you for my services. Good entertainment doesn’t come cheap these days.”

“But I have no money on me.”

“Then I’ll accept a favor. A ride back into town.” 

Gilbert raises an eyebrow. “In only your chemise? Are you not worried about your honor?”

“Oh my- ” Anne gasps, suddenly aware of the situation. She is too terrified to check upon the state of her breasts, small as they are but no doubt straining against the fabric. In all of this bedlam, Anne had forgotten about her clothes, too secure in the belief that only God’s eyes were watching before she slipped and fell and stumbled into Gilbert Blythe downstream. Her only saving grace is the fact that her lower half is submerged, stream water clouded enough to hide her open drawers. 

Anne yells “and _not once_ have you averted your eyes?” before throwing both hands impulsively over her chest. She doesn’t stop to consider the consequences of finally letting go, no time to scream before she is completely submerged once again. 

Thankfully, the strong pair of arms that hold the rowboat in place are the same ones that wrap around her armpits and chest, pulling her up and out of the stream. 

Anne hacks out most of the water before collapsing onto the floor, letting the harsh sun bear down while she lays there, unmoving. She vaguely registers Gilbert calling out softly her name.

“Shhh!” she presses a finger to her lips, smiling against the curve of it, just happy to be alive. “I’m photosynthesizing, Mr. Blythe.”

There is a panicked edge to his tone when he repeats it. “ _Anne!_ ” 

She cups a palm over her eyes in order to better see her savior, slowly adjusting as he comes back into focus; first his hair and then the highpoints of his cheeks, until all she sees is Gilbert with his gaze firmly averted. 

“What is it?”

He swallows twice before moving to unbutton his shirt, frustrated when he can't get them undone fast enough and just rips it off instead. A clean break down the center reveals the smooth planes of his chest and hard abdominal region. The fastenings drop and scatter loudly across the floorboard, skipping out and sinking into the water down below. Anne goes to scream, to demand what the hell he thinks he’s doing, before Gilbert sheds the garment and abruptly turns face, holding it backwards with an unsteady hand.

“The sun - it’s . . . and your _body_ \- ” he can barely string together more than two words at a time.

 _My body?_ She lowers her eyes.

And chokes. 

Under the sunlight, her underthings are rendered effectively transparent, not a scrap of the fabric providing Anne with even false modesty or cover. The dip of her waist and the contour of her breasts, including the neat thatch of red that sits demurely atop her mound - there isn’t an inch or curve on Anne’s body that isn’t fully on display, completely exposed for all and sundry and most immediately, Gilbert Blythe. 

Mortified, she scrambles to pull on his shirt with nothing close to resembling grace or dexterity, just thankful for the garment which, in retrospect, would have been more helpful with its buttons intact. But beggars can’t be choosers when their virtue is in question.

“Thank you,” Anne whispers when she’s at least halfway decent, suddenly realizing she hasn’t said as much to him yet. “For rescuing me and . . . for your shirt as well.” 

Gilbert grunts and goes to awkwardly rub his neck, the first of many nervous habits that will begin to unravel in her presence. Anne tries in vain not to notice the cord of muscles running prominently through his back as he does so, focusing on covering as much of herself as possible.

He says, “I’m going to turn around now so I can see where it is I’m steering. I know a path we can take that will lead us back to my orchard unseen. From there, I can grab you a change of clothes and give you a ride back in my buggy. Does that sound agreeable to you, Miss Anne with an E?” 

She thrills at the prospect, despite being in the presence of someone who is not quite a stranger but strange enough to warrant caution and to suggest calling upon a matron like Rachel Lynde for help instead. But Anne is loathed to see Mrs. Lynde for anything less than muder and the chance to explore the inner sanctum of a genius, the most private parts of his world in the hallways where he haunts, despite the stain of what being caught would do to Anne’s reputation, is too salacious and enticing to otherwise pass up. So she nods before realizing that, of course, he can’t see it, and vocalizes it in a way that sounds entirely too eager. She clears her throat and says it again, quieter this time, but reddens when even that comes out excessively breathy and outrageous.

Gilbert turns around slowly like he told her he would, showcasing a front that is perhaps even more devastating than his back; the broad expanse of his chest and the dark hair around Gilbert’s navel, neat but coarse and disappearing into the waistband of his pants, leading to something that makes Anne dizzy just to consider. Sinew and muscle and tanned, sun-kissed skin; the darker coloring suggesting the frequency with which he forgoes a shirt altogether.

“You never told me your name,” Anne points out as he begins to paddle them back. She, as a rule, rejects silence altogether, not when the world is so big and her imagination so wide and the space between them so cavernous, she builds a bridge to get closer. “Of course, I know it. Everyone in Avonlea knows it. But I suppose it is more polite to give you the chance rather than presume I am close enough to refer to you by name. I could just easily refer to you as Mr. Artist, of course. Or My Hero, if you please. Although I kindly request you don’t ask me to call you the latter, for I’m not entirely sure I could handle the embarrassment of the exchange. I just about died - figuratively and quite literally, I suppose - when you pulled up in your rowboat, especially considering the dreadful state I am in, and which I, despite having no right to do so, also request that you don’t divulge the details of to anyone at all. I’m unmarried, you see, and new in town as well. I don’t have much of a reputation to uphold, but the little that I do suggests that my virtue’s still intact.”

“Gilbert Blythe,” he replies. “And your secret is safe with me. I’d hate to be expelled for not marrying you as well.”

“Avonlea would never.” Of this, Anne is fairly certain. “You are much too important to the townspeople here.”

“I am?” Gilbert challenges with a quirk of his brow. “Or my art is?” He looks impish but just a little bit sad.

Anne asks “are they not both one and the same?” to which Gilbert replies, “I beg your pardon?” with a frown.

She pulls a hand through her drying, copper locks, trying to undo the tangles so she doesn’t explode beneath his gaze. “Forgive me if I sound foolish, but I am an artist myself. Not in the same sense exactly as I am a writer, you see. But when I write, I put every part of myself in my words and scenes. I feel my characters’ joys as if they were my own and celebrate their triumphs like they were won by my hand. Sometimes, I even feel such sorrow that I cry into the paper and am forced to start a new page because the ink has bled through. Is it not the same for you and your art? Do you not embed even a little of yourself?” 

Gilbert pauses to consider the words, lips pursed like he’s deep in thought. “Perhaps I do, for the amount of love and labor that goes in. But I do sometimes wish . . .”

“You wish?” 

“To be known as more than just the fruits of my creation.” The sentiment is raw and indescribably lonely.

As verbose as she is, Anne still struggles to speak, to find the words that will ease the pain he so clearly holds. “I think to paint beautiful things, you must be beautiful yourself. In mind and body, as well as in soul. The things you create are the face you wear for the world, so only ever put out true things, honest things, and you will always be known.” 

Something in the way Gilbert gazes at her, soulfully and for a while, taking his time and drinking in his fill, an edge to it that reminds Anne about her state of undress. She flushes and forces her eyes away, unnerved by the sudden emotional charge of the moment.

But Gilbert diffuses it just as easily as he starts it. “You find my body beautiful?” he says, dimple deepening on his cheek.

“Don’t be such a _boy_ ,” Anne scoffs, turning to face the blended shapes and colors of the forest drifting by, patches of which look familiar as they begin nearing her usual path. Gilbert rows for perhaps another ten minutes, powerful strokes she tries her best to ignore. They chat idly about nothing and then Anne and Avonlea, whose arrival he noted the first weekend she arrived.

“We’re neighbors, you know.” 

Anne nods, nonchalant, trying not to reveal much how she is _very aware_. “Not for long, I suspect. I’m only boarding temporarily at Green Gables. I don’t have the wages right now to afford more than a tiny room to myself, but in a few months when I’m more established, I will be moving out into a cottage of my own. Although it pains me to be separated from Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. They have been ever so kind and don’t mind one lick about my unusual background or credentials.”

“Well why should anyone care?” 

“Why indeed?” she laughs, ticking them off on her fingers one by one. “For starters, I am a single woman without a husband or family to support me. I grew up in an orphanage until I was old enough to fend for myself and then it was off to whichever brood or family needed my services the most. At first, it was the Hammonds, which was a miserable existence but provided stability, at least. Until Mr. Hammond dropped dead and I was shipped off to Halifax. I lived there until I was 15, I think.”

“And after?”

“Then Ms. Josephine Barry took me in. Initially as a maid, but we grew ever so close. She allowed me to live on with her and go to school as I’ve always wished. I admit it was hard, making up for so many lost years, reading in snatches between chores or early in the morning before the children rose, but I graduated top of my class and received a full scholarship to Queens. Ms. Barry was also the one who informed me of the teaching post availability.” 

Gilbert chuckles and pulls them inland, docking the boat before helping Anne disembark. His fingers feel strong, like the rest of him, wrapped carefully around her own. “So of all the places, you ended up in Avonlea.” His heat somehow lingers even after they disconnect.

She trails after Gilbert slowly as rocks and other debris dig painfully into her heel. “And you? Of all the places you could go, all the landscapes you could paint, why do you limit yourself to the ones right here in Avonlea?”

Gilbert shrugs and replies, “Because my family’s buried here.” The wound isn’t fresh, but isn’t fully healed either.

They walk in silence for a stretch, Anne struggling to keep up but tight-lipped and determined. Gilbert, despite being the picture of attentiveness thus far, is too absorbed in his own thoughts to really take notice of her plight. But he _does_ turn around when a tree branch snaps underfoot and Anne hisses in pain, hot tears springing from her eyes like tiny rivulets down her cheeks. Gilbert rushes over immediately, gently lifting her ankle to inspect the open wound. Crimson liquid bleeds freely and coagulates in the soft skin by her arch, ugly and jagged but thankfully not deep. Anne whimpers and cries because she’s had a very tough day, the only thing stopping a tantrum being Gilbert’s calming presence and touch.

“You can’t walk on this anymore or you’ll risk an infection.” He grips the ends of his shirt between two fingers, rubbing for permission with hazel eyes cast upwards towards her face. Anne nods and allows him to tear off a strip near her thigh, binding it tightly around her foot to help stymie the blood. She experimentally puts weight on it just to confirm Gilbert’s suspicions, not because she doesn’t trust him but because she is stubborn.

“What now?” Anne sniffles with the advent of fresh pain. She can’t walk on this leg anyways, the risk of infection aside.

Already, a decision has solidified inside Gilbert’s head. “Get on my back.” A command which leaves no room for objection. 

He squats low to the ground to allow Anne better access, who hesitates but slowly climbs on top of him in the end, arms around his shoulders and connecting loosely by his heart. Gilbert slides those same steady fingers beneath the softest parts of her thighs, hiking her up so she sits more comfortably on his hips. Anne _knows_ he can feel the press of her womanhood against the small of his back, the spread of her legs bringing them closer together. Her damned crotchless panties provide not even one layer of separation.

“We’re not far,” he promises, voice and demeanor already wrecked. There is a breathlessness to him despite not yet having moved. 

_I suppose I must be heavier than I think_. But she couldn’t have guessed that from the easy way he moves, fixedly and without any hint of a struggle. They proceed through the forest, the first minute being fine. Overheated and embarrassing, but otherwise fine. 

It is only when Gilbert goes to readjust that Anne realizes the trouble she’s in, hiking her up marginally to re-establish his grip on her thighs. Perhaps she’s keyed up from the events of the day or it’s the comfort of his back against her already sensitive breasts, but the slide of Anne’s slit leaves traces of slick down his spine, the sudden friction delicious against something deep inside her belly. Anne barely manages to swallow back a moan before burying her head into the crook of his neck. Hazily, barely conscious, she tracks the way Gilbert swallows hard against her lips, Adam’s apple bobbing as he stumbles forward without falling. Anne lurches as a result of the sudden jerking motion, sliding upwards and rubs against him indescribably _right_. Cries out pathetically against the salt of his skin. 

The still functioning part of her brain begs Anne to put a stop to what she’s doing, which therein lies the problem because _Anne doesn’t know what she’s doing_. She is void of thoughts altogether, only chasing whatever feels best. Every inch of her on fire and perhaps seconds away from shattering. Gilbert must recognize how close she is and begins to speed up, jostling her loosely as she holds on for dear life. 

Higher and higher, her body climbs to a peak, until all of her senses narrow down to one singular, delicious point. Anne grinds into his back in wanton, circular motions, fingernails scraping to give her better purchase.

He says nothing except a word. Groans her name and it's enough.

_"Anne."_

She quickly topples over, shaking and splintering into a million beautiful pieces. She screams her release into an otherwise silent forest, high-pitched and keening in a way she’s never sounded before. He keeps his steady walking pace, but it becomes too much, too fast; so she scrapes and pulls at his scalp because she can’t trust herself to speak.

Twilight descends rapidly as if to cover up their tryst. In the distance, Anne can spot his house nestled against a grove of ripening fruits. It isn’t long before Gilbert is pulling her inside, setting her down as he starts to light some candles.

They don’t speak about the incident that happened outside in the woods. Not yet, anyways, when the time between dusk and absolute night stretches on.

Gilbert disappears into his room while Anne sits boneless and sleepy and tired on the couch. Her foot injury prevents her from walking and exploring as she’d like, fingertips trailing while she investigates 'til dawn. But from where she rests, Anne examines all of the particulars on displays, little pieces of Gilbert he leaves habitually lying around. It is hard to make out much detail in the dark, at a distance, with only a few candles to get by, but still she feels melancholy like dust settling in fine layers on every surface. 

In a small frame above the mantle sits a depiction, hand-drawn, composed entirely of scribbles coalescing to form seven humanoid figures. They’re all in various shapes and sizes, lined up and somber while others are seated. The space where their faces should be are blacked out completely, heavy lines like slash marks against the fading paper background. All except for one, the youngest. Gilbert, she presumes.

When the last Blythe, the seventh, re-emerges from his room, Anne asks him softly the first question that comes to mind. “Why is it that you’ve never painted a person before?” His entire body of work, thus far, is devoid of any portraits, only still-life and landscapes - the things he knows best.

Gilbert considers the question as he settles beside her, setting aside fresh clothes and art supplies in the space in between. Three thick, black pieces of charcoal roll and fall to the ground. “For an artist, I lack a sense of imagination. So I’m limited to paint only that which I know in intimate detail. What my eyes and ears can perceive.” He lifts a hand to rub Anne’s cheek, smearing a line of charcoal across her face. “What my hands can touch.” 

She leans in slowly, mindlessly, to the caress.

“Anne,” Gilbert whispers. He whispers the E. “Will you do me a favor?”

She feels breathless, pinned beneath his gaze and the pad of his thumb against her lips, swiping back and forth as if to rub the color into her bloodstream. Anne’s heart is racing and she doesn’t know why, all while her other senses dull softly like in the stages before sleep. “Yes, anything,” she replies, enraptured by his eyes, so full of longing and romance and something darker, like honey. 

“Let me draw you,” he says. “All of you. Tonight and forever.” 

She can only nod, silently, and fall even deeper into his trap. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN’T HELP IT THAT MY KINK IS FAMOUS! GILBERT OKAY BUT WE ALL FUCKING KNOW WHO HOLDS ALL OF THE POWER IN THE RELATIONSHIP!!!!!!   
> 
> 
> Posting this because I can't stand to pick at it any longer. I tried out a new writing style and then gave up halfway through because I don't have the creativity or talent to sustain more lyrical prose. I do, however, have the stupidity to ignore the improbability of getting off from what should have been an innocent piggy-back ride so at least I have _that_ going for me lmao. Anyways, if you ever want to read something from someone who _actually_ knows how to write, I really recommend anything @illuminatiny conjures up, because their prose is a *chef’s kiss* and I live in envy every day.
> 
> -John Everett Millais’ [Ophelia](https://dam-13749.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/detail-2.jpg)  
> -Inspiration taken from the manga [Hakuji](https://myanimelist.net/manga/10141/Hakuji), which (CW!) revolves around an artist's relationship with a minor. Obviously not the case here, but just citing my sources!  
> -Also inspired by Andrew Wyeth's [Helga Series](https://www.pinterest.com/paolokata/andrew-wyeth-only-helga/) which comprise of more than 240 portraits and paintings Wyeth created of his muse, Helga, and which they kept secret from both of their respective spouses. (CW!) Some nudity is depicted in the gallery linked.
> 
> tbh, i just need a little break from writing about modern times right now. hope y'all understand. xo


	2. lady godiva

She doesn’t know what to expect, shivering as his fingers hook against the line of her throat, pressing softly against the tissue as they travel down and stop centimeters away from the neckline of her still-drying chemise. Anne has stopped breathing altogether, afraid that the delicate rise and fall of her chest is enough to snap them out of the moment or make apparent the reason behind certain rules of decorum. But Gilbert’s focus is single-minded, darkened eyes following the path of his touch as if trying to absorb her twice, pupils dilating to take in every single detail. From there, it is feather-light traces against the outline of her collar, continuing on outwards towards the slope of Anne’s shoulders, simultaneously too much and not nearly enough; warmth where he grazes, followed by chill when he withdraws. 

All the while, Anne remains passive and transfixed. Swallows every hum or mewl of encouragement and holds them close to her chest, shuddering from the effort of containing their desertion. She cannot appear to be complicit in what will no doubt be her debauchery, but can’t bring herself to go or put a stop to it either.

Gilbert continues his tactile mapping and exploration, hands trailing down the sides of her goosefleshed arms only to stop and loop around the ring of Anne’s wrists. Two thumbs swipe gently over her protrusion of veins, counting a pulse that thrums nimbly beneath the candlelight, the source of which burns quicker as the night stretches on. Anne’s palms spread before him as Gilbert kneads her mounts of Venus, lifting both hands so that they’re horizontal to his eyes, kisses to fingertips as he envelopes one digit _and sucks_. Anne chokes back a moan, deliriously turned on, but unable to move in case she bumps against and shatters this frantic fever dream.

Hours elapse in the span of mere minutes while Gilbert takes his time touching every part of her body, working his way south but nowhere close to where she needs him. He expertly alternates between soft touches and drags, her skin the canvas on which he paints in unseen oil colors. Patient and unyielding, Gilbert lingers in places until he’s certain he’s memorized them down to the very shape and number of freckles, until Anne feels desperate enough to almost beg. By the time he makes it anywhere near her breasts, breath ghosting before he circles the flat of his tongue against a sensitive peak, Anne arches so hard her knee knocks clumsily into his chest.

“Your foot.” He retreats, much to Anne’s breathless disappointment. A familiar wetness makes itself known, uncomfortable enough that she tightly crosses her legs, clenching down around nothing in an attempt to relieve the pressure. Achingly, she is empty, like a chasm unfilled.

Gilbert stands and straightens himself out with all the tension of a rubber band about to snap, fists clenched beside him as he slips away from the room. She is initially confused, listening to the sounds of him rifling around in a cupboard, walking from end to end in search of something, before a satisfied grunt when Gilbert finally locates his mark. When he doesn’t immediately come back, choosing instead to linger in whatever liminal corner of the house tucked away, as Anne counts the seconds— _ten_ —in which there is absolute silence, his absence creates an opening for emotions like irritation and _shame_. 

His eventual reappearance with bandages and antiseptic in hand serves to mitigate little of Anne’s frustration at being left high and decidedly not dry, temper simmering low and roiling underneath the surface. Gilbert kneels down beside her, pulling open the decanter with a satisfying _pop!_ as he moves to elevate the affected limb atop the couch, unwrapping the strip of fabric that has since browned and crusted over. Anne hisses sharply for show, having long stopped feeling the pain as anything other than a dull throbbing sensation, because Gilbert’s touch is partially magic in its power to distract. Partially, because it ends when he presses a saturated cloth of the disinfecting agent against her open wound.

“Gilbert that hurts,” she whines, but doesn’t shake away from his grip. 

“You know what hurts more? A case of gangrene.” 

“I object on the basis of it being such an unromantic name alone.” 

“Then hold still,” he directs.

“I already am!” 

“Even stiller” Gilbert laughs and takes note of her pout. He eases, somewhat, while cleaning out the cut with what Anne perceives to be practice, every move deliberate and far more gentle than she deserves. Anne thinks everything Gilbert does is practiced just by virtue of his hands, how elegant they are without the calluses of hard labor, smudged in places from the remnants of his art. She admires the width of his palms and the length of every finger, soft but pronounced lines leading from knuckles to tendons, and his absolute control over pressure applied. The faint smell of paint thinner and ultramarine blue as he works.

“Do you hurt yourself often? In your particular line of work?” 

“What do you mean?” 

Anne shrugs, gesturing vaguely at his stock. “You have a rather considerable amount of medical supplies.” But the subtext remains: _More supplies than one person could possibly need_. 

“Force of habit, I guess.” He finishes wrapping up her foot, clean and bandaged, with a final tap to her ankle. “We always had at least one sibling in the household subject to sickness or bodily damage. This stockpile is the result, untouched as it’s been in years.” 

Anne winces in response and feels bad for even asking; furthermore strange, considering she’s usually on the conveying end when it comes to reminding others that she’s an orphan. People of their ilk are so few and far between, and rarely does Anne come across another soul purported to be as lonesome as she. Arguably even lonelier, since Anne has Cole and Aunt Jo, her little ones at school, and now the Cuthberts as well. Speaking of whom, she peeks nervously out the window; supposes from the positioning of the moon and the crickets’ vibrato that she has another hour or so before Matthew and Marilla get back, in which case she should be in bed, beneath her covers, and incapable of raising suspicions.

“I must be getting on,” Anne announces with only a hint of lament. 

Gilbert agrees and says “Yes, I was actually thinking the same.” Deliberated as such when he disappeared from the room. He’s kept her out for longer than any gentleman can defend and taken far too many liberties that Anne should have otherwise rebuffed. But while she doesn’t deny the liberties she has taken in turn, of which there are many and perhaps the catalyst for everything else, Anne also contends that it is not entirely her fault; she simply can’t think straight when Gilbert is around. Her cognitive dysfunction is on par with that of inebriation and like men charged with manslaughter, Anne cannot be held liable for her actions.

So quietly, she changes into the extra set of clothes, a pair of old trousers and a shirt not dissimilar to the one already on loan. The pant legs prove difficult to slip into even one at a time, but she manages with one hand clamped over Gilbert’s shoulder for balance. Anne figures the pants must be older or borrowed from a sibling, because the hem stops at her ankles and fits almost snug around her waist, molded as if made to accentuate her fanny. The straight cut of it sits close enough to rub occasionally against Anne’s leg hair, which thrills the redhead thoroughly when compared to the surgical procedure required just to scratch an itch beneath her normal skirts. 

“Okay, I’m ready to go now,” she announces, but Gilbert doesn’t turn around. Just mumbles, “Are you good to walk or do you need to get on my back?” while staring hopefully at the door.

She flushes at the implication of a repeat performance and the anticipation with which Gilbert regards her response. Even if she couldn’t, Anne would rather grit her teeth and bear down, than to put herself in another compromising situation while alone with the artist. Although his trousers provide a modicum of modesty more than her open panties underneath, the cover of darkness erases whatever respectability she’s reclaimed. Propriety that isn’t visible to the naked eye might as well be propriety flounced to the likes of Avonlea society, recovery impossible once one has fallen from its graces. 

Fortunately, Anne can at least limp along, still needing Gilbert’s rigid support but not to the heated extent of their earlier jaunt through the woods. She touches his elbow in quiet permission and he extends it outwards for Anne to loop her arm through and grip; likes how sturdy he feels against her side and leans in more than is strictly necessary. Gilbert shows no reaction other than to place a hand over the fingers digging into his well-defined biceps. Together, they stagger toward the stable where he keeps his one rig and horse and takes all of thirty seconds to inspect before calling the whole operation a wash. 

“The axle is damaged,” he says aloud for her benefit. “A couple of spokes as well.”

Anne gasps. “And you hadn’t the time to notice until now?” 

“No reason to, seeing as how all of my supplies get delivered. Must’ve happened years ago, when Dad was still around.” He falls quiet for a moment, as if lost in reverie, before a quiet hoot snaps him back out of his thoughts. “I can still take you on horseback though, if you don’t mind the inconvenience.”

Anne waves him off heartily, eager to move on from another reminder of his loss. “Nonsense, Mr. Blythe. You’ve saved my life and introduced me to the wonderful range of motion that are trouser pants. Anything on top of that is providence, surely.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Am I back to Mr. Blythe now?” 

“I’ve decided we need a certain measure of . . . distance between us. The way I’ve behaved thus far is . . . scandalous, to say the least.”

“I’m hardly scandalized,” Gilbert points out, saddling up his magnificent midnight mare. Anne sits amongst the hay bales, watching him work with only soft starlight to see by. She bemoans the fact that he is fully-clothed once again, unable to make out the cords of muscles running along his neck and upper back. Does, however, appreciate the curve of Gilbert’s powerful thighs and ass as he loops the bridle through his horse’s muzzle, whispering words of endearment into the creature’s ear just loud enough to hear. Anne admires everything about his body, from the curls of his hair to the shaplieness of his calves, openly leering as if she isn’t the one insisting on upholding some semblance of public decency. 

When Gilbert suddenly turns around, Anne jumps to construct her face into one of demurity and disinterest, but isn’t sure she manages to fully convince him of either expression. Gilbert grins cheekily as he says, “I contend that there’s almost _too much_ distance between us and despite everything, I have not touched my fill of you enough to satisfy my desire. That is, my desire to draw you with any hopes of accuracy or precision, of course. And are you not of the mind that practice makes perfect, Miss Anne?” 

She blushes from both being caught in the act and upon hearing the bald-faced suggestion of his words. 

“Re-regardless!” Anne stammers, pulling back her mane of red hair so that it doesn't sit so oppressively against her neck. The heat of summer is already unbearable without her inclination to warm beneath even the suggestion of his gaze. “It is the principle of the matter!” 

Gilbert walks over with his horse and hands extended, ostensibly to help Anne up onto his steed, but possessing a glimmer of mirth in his eyes that hint undeniably at mischief. Gilbert looks at her guilelessly and asks, “so am I not allowed to touch you ever?” like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and unlike what certain parts of Anne had done earlier in the privacy of his home. She begrudgingly accepts his help despite the way Gilbert strokes the inside of her wrists, moving to grip and lift her body up by the small of her waist, and lingers by her bottom as Anne gets situated in the saddle. She burns on the inside—half-outraged, half-thrilled—and confused as to why she can’t make up her mind; straddles two temperaments without wanting to compromise either. Anne is, at once, a respectable school teacher and a fickle, wanton creature, both of whom are unable to deny a dangerous attraction to Gilbert Blythe. 

“You can touch me within reason,” is her eventual compromise, despite knowing it leaves too much room for even the loosest interpretations. Consequently and as is perhaps her intention, Gilbert takes this as a cue to finally mount his mare, swinging up and over and pressing flush against her back, the saddle not wide enough to accommodate more than one body at a time. The cantle’s incline forces her to slide as far back into Gilbert as possible, feeling the strum of his heart in the spot between her shoulder blades, steady and strong just like the rest of him. She melts and molds herself against the crevices of his form, liquid metal in a forge, and solidifying into one.

“Is this okay?” Gilbert asks, slipping both hands around her waist to hold the reins. She feels his breath tickling the back of her neck, running down the open collar of her dress shirt and blowing gently down her spine. 

Anne nods stiffly, tongue stuck in her throat, heavy and swollen like a corpse set to sea. From behind, Gilbert coaxes his horse into a moderate walking pace, the rhythmic _clip-clop_ lulling her into a false sense of comfort. She finds that she doesn’t even have to direct him left at the fork to get onto the path leading directly to Green Gables. After all, he is an Avonlea native and the Cuthberts his long-time neighbor, so Anne stamps out the girlish part of herself that wonders if he, too, treads a similar passage to see her every day. As if Anne is the woman of intrigue and not the genius artist of Prince Edward Island. 

She has always wanted to be alluring, or enrapturing, and would even settle for _charming_ to somebody, somewhere, someday. The types of adjectives used to describe the likes of Jane or Elizabeth Bennett in her beloved _Pride and Prejudice_ , even if there is no accompanying Bingley or Mr. Darcy, as hers is a promise to be the Bride of Adventure. She imagines what it would be like to be so devastatingly beautiful, while content as she is with her red hair and freckled skin, the knowledge that she will never fill out the way women who are inclined towards easy childbirthing should be, knobbly knees and all - Anne finds acceptance in her fate. But still, despite this, she cannot help but wonder.

“Why me?” she asks as they pass the split stone marking the outskirts of Green Gables. 

Anne can almost picture his brows furrowing down at the top of her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just curious, is all. Why I should be the one you choose to be the subject of your portrait.” 

The rumblings of a chuckle reverberate and pass through him to her. “Is this the part where you want me to wax poetic about your beauty? About how yours is a countenance that should be preserved on canvas forever?”

She elbows him sharply in the ribs. “I’m being serious, Mr. Blythe.” 

“What if I was being equally as serious?” he says. “Is your self-esteem so low that you would consider these compliments in jest?” 

“How can it be anything _but_? When I’m comparing myself to your usual subject matters? How do I measure up to the world, in all of its wide and unknowable beauty?”

“Are you not made of the exact same materials? Did God not create you using the exact same brushstrokes?”

“Stop answering my questions with more questions.” She is deeply annoyed. Gilbert is willfully misunderstanding her, trying to cast her insecurities off as mere trifles to be dismissed. Or maybe he just genuinely believes that she is a wonder to behold.

“You are the world, my Anne with an E. The palette from which everything is based on and applied to. The red of your hair is that of fired clay and sunsets, the initial sparks of ember and the zenith of fall. Eyes like storm clouds and mist in the early mornings. Skin of alabaster and cinnamon dust, speckled goldfinch eggs, and paper birch trees. The Fibonacci sequence of your body, a golden ratio of proportions, starting from your brow all the way down to even the arch of your foot. Everything about you is exactly as I’ve painted in my landscapes for years, and yet paler than the prospect of capturing you in your entirety.” 

She doesn’t know how to respond, given the poetry of his words. Has never heard anyone describe her as anything but plain.

As if sensing the lapse in her defenses, the quiet bubble of permission, Gilbert leans in to thoroughly take advantage, overcome with a need to touch her once again. One greedy hand slips in between the waistband of Anne's pants, loose enough to put up very little resistance, as he gently caresses the skin and hair above her most private parts.

“Is this within reason?” Gilbert asks as he nudges lower and lower, emboldened by the way her fingers entwine automatically in his hair. She clutches at the curls to bring his lips closer and closer, enabling him to pepper kisses along the sides of her jaw. Meanwhile, two digits slide to part the suction of Anne’s folds, lazily circling the nub that sits at the apex of her mound. Sparks of electricity shoot through every nerve in her body, which only grow stronger as he swirls purposefully and quick. A combination of things sends Anne over the edge: long, practiced fingers and the rhythmic pounding of gravity against her center. The appearance of Gilbert’s erection digging into the small of her back, rubbing against her every time she slides back in the saddle. She subconsciously leans forward as she rides out her peak, gripping the bridle as Gilbert drives into her ass; three strokes and spills, moisture leaking through three layers of clothing, warm and wet mixed with the sweat on Anne’s back. All the while, that same hand has not left the waistband of her pants, rubbing through her first orgasm and bringing Anne almost painfully to her second.

“You are so beautiful,” he bites into the skin of her shoulder, a sudden pain Gilbert smooths over with the flat of his tongue.

Anne pants, chest heaving, as she swats away his hand. Commands him to stop because “I can’t come anymore.” Obediently, Gilbert removes his fingers and wipes the products of her arousal against the fabric of his shirt. Her pussy flutters in response to the lewdity of the sight, a valiant attempt to rally, but Anne is way too oversensitized and wrung out for thirds.

“Am I no longer Mr. Blythe?” he asks breathily, slowing his horse down from its trot. They are coming up on Green Gables, a lonely silhouette in the distance. 

Anne is still throbbing in the aftershocks of her come down, unable to process much of anything outside of _feels nice_ and _shouldn’t happen again_. It takes far too long for Anne to recover enough of her faculties, to remember the many things she has forgone in life and in the lead-up to this moment: a family, a home, an entire childhood and adolescence. Anne’s dignity as well, if she chooses to lay it at his feet.

She steels herself before coming to a decision. 

Paces away from the gate, she demands to be let down. Gilbert obliges, dismounting and confused before his expression shifts into something akin to concern. “Are you alright?” he asks as Anne jumps off, unbalanced, kept upright through the grip of his hands on her waist alone. Anne rips away from his grasp the minute she feels stable, fists on her hips in preparation for battle.

“Are you going to court me?” she questions, the words flying out of her mouth. 

“Anne-girl,” he starts, hesitating but soft.

“I can’t think straight around you, with your eyes and hands all over. So if we are to meet, it will be under the close watch of others and with a chaperone present in cases where we’re alone. You have known me in ways that only a husband should know his wife and until we are married, that shall be the extent of your knowledge.” 

“Do you really wish to marry me?” he asks, but doesn’t come any closer, good humor returning when he realizes she's merely embarrassed and grasping. “Because we can go to Reverend Allen tomorrow morning if that’s what you want.” 

But Anne is more than that—she is also determined. Stamps her foot, the one not injured and bandaged inside of his too-big boot. “Have you no romantic bone in your body, Gilbert Blythe?” 

“Was my speech about your body being a palette not enough?” 

She would throttle him if she weren’t suspicious he would turn it into something inappropriate. “I want you to woo me, you ninny! Like a proper lady should be. And while I may not have much in the world in terms of looks and possessions, being an orphan and school teacher and new to Avonlea to boot. But I at least would like a proper ritual and courtship, to feel wanted and desired as not just an object but a wife, even if I’ve been slated to become barefoot with bastards in the eyes of others my whole life. I want the pomp and the circumstance and polite visits in parlors, love letters passed from pockets to breast. Even if it fizzles out in a season and your fixation with me fades, I want to know that I’ve done it the proper way, with the assurance of your intentions. Without terrible rumors flying around at Church about my honor.” 

“Woo me,” she finishes, unlocking the gate and slipping through. “Woo me, and I’m yours to do with as you please.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy-handed dialogue? Me? Perish the thought. 
> 
> But holy shit do I nit-pick over this story like it’s my goddamn job.
> 
> -John Collier’s [Lady Godiva](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/John_Collier_-_Lady_Godiva_-_c_1898_-_Herbert_Art_Gallery_and_Museum.jpg)  
> -I am also on [Tumblr](http://bbotanyclub.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/bbotanyclub) as well!


	3. the lady of shalott

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Hi.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnw-TRbTng8) I don’t even have an excuse for how long this took lol but here are a lot of words (like, a LOT of words) that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Anne has to fight off disappointment when he doesn’t show up at Green Gables the next morning to ask Matthew to court, crushes it firmly under foot when there is no sign of him the day after that, until Monday morning blooms bright and she sets off to school without a glimpse of him edgewise, far past saddened and tipping dangerously into anger. Not even at Church could she catch the impression of his hands, bent over prayer, and repenting for his sins. When Anne tries to subtly inquire after his absence, Tillie Boulter laughs it off.

“Church is more a formality for him than any true expression of piety. In fact, Mr. Blythe really only started attending regularly a few months back. Coincidentally, not long after your arrival.”

Just remembering this exchange sends Anne into a rage, fuming at the many ways in which he flounces proprietary and answers to no one but himself. She tramples down the familiar road to his orchard, half a mind to continue down the lane toward his home that sits still and lonesome in the distance, but decides against it as Anne recognizes the limited amount of time she has left to get to class by eight. As a consolation, Anne huffs and snaps off the branch of a nearby tree, normally reticent to damage anything in nature, but lobs it spitefully at the image of Gilbert she conjures up in her mind, annoyingly suave even in her imagination. The artist dips and dodges her makeshift projectile with ease, smiling as he straightens out, and comes prepared with a honeyed apology on his lips.

“Sorry I missed you this weekend, Anne-girl.”

She yelps at his very much real apparition, appearing from out of what feels thin air. Gilbert’s hands move automatically to her waist as she startles, even though Anne is in no danger of falling over.

He laughs afterwards, warm breath curling around the shell of her ear. “To be fair, I was very much preoccupied with your memory and trying to recreate it on canvas.”

A feeble excuse, although one that still manages to set her heart aflutter.

Petulantly, Anne replies, “You wouldn’t have had to draw so much from memory, fickle and imprecise as it is, if only you had come to see me instead.”

“On the contrary, I remember everything _vividly_.” He whispers this low and the tenor of it travels in a straight line south of her body.

Anne feels dizzy and breathless all at once, guilty for the memories of rapture he evokes when Gilbert’s fingers press firmly against the boning of her corset, as if his true intention was to check for its presence all along. Her temper flares as she side-steps away, putting a respectable distance between the two of them should some stranger wander close enough to observe.

“Is that so?” Anne forces her nose up in the air, to act above it all despite the fevered way she brings herself to peak every night; clumsy and desperately trying to recreate his touch. Her own fingers are not so long or as nimble as his, falling short of adept as she trembles and writhes into her sheets. Anne’s only salvation is the same fickle memory she derides, his voice in her ear instructing her to _come for me, Anne_. “Personally, I would rather forget the events of that day altogether.”

She sniffs and walks away, deliberately slow knowing that he’ll follow behind, but finding herself still hoping for it to happen regardless.

Gilbert matches her strides despite the fact that his legs stretch out much longer than her own. “Are you disappointed in me then? Because I didn’t show up to court?”

She scoffs and throws a bitter look over her shoulder, withering when she says, “I am angry because you are a coward who won’t associate with me in public. Like I am some dirty secret you are trying to keep entirely to yourself." She’s not quite stomping, but only just. "Are you ashamed of me, Gilbert Blythe?”

“You must know that’s not the case,” he implores, swinging ahead and walking backwards to hold Anne’s gaze, naked hurt and dejection reflected in the depths of his own. Anne cannot overtake him at any pace outside of a sprint, which she refuses to do on the basis that it would seem undignified and juvenile besides.

He explains, “I am just an incredibly private person” and stops to grab ahold of her hands.

Gilbert's own, as a rule, swallows everything in its grasp; the same pair of hands that have heralded both her destruction and release. It takes an incredible amount of willpower just to try and break free, when his thumbs rub so softly in circles on her wrists, but still freely lets her go.

“A relationship, by nature, is not exactly a private thing.”

“You know I have never been bothered by society’s impositions. That I have always existed on my own, outside of its many rules and purview.” Gilbert comes by the observation authentically, if not indifferent to it altogether, and the apathetic nature he holds is what really grates on Anne’s nerves.

“In that regard we differ when it is society that raised me, forging me in the fires of misfortune, and planting in me a perseverance to rise above it all. I hate it and in that same vein cannot be without. I cannot make a living as a school teacher without society’s say so, or live and reside in a place without my reputation preceding me. I am dependent on society in the same ways that I am subjected to it, too. So understand Mr. Blythe that you cannot have me—wholly and in the manner you crave—without first accepting the other. Do I make myself clear?”

His beautiful hands curl up into fists by his side, quivering slightly like he’s holding himself back. “Anne, I can’t.”

“Why not?” She actually stomps her foot down onto the ground this time.

Gilbert sighs, jaw muscles locking in a way that illustrates frustration. “It’s . . . complicated. More complicated than you’d think.”

“Often, I find that when people use that excuse, their situations can be distilled into two simple categories: either they won’t, or they can’t. So which is it for you?”

“Anne—”

She suddenly feels like crying, but categorically refuses to allow Gilbert the knowledge that he’s hurt her, almost excruciatingly so. “Will you not even try? Am I not worth the attempt?”

“It’s not you—”

“Save it, Mr. Blythe. It appears we are at an impasse.”

Even despite her heart wrenching itself into shreds inside her chest, Anne grants him ten seconds to refute her conclusion. To take back his rejection and pledge to see Matthew post haste. But he doesn’t in the end, can only stand there pathetically without a word to his defense, and Anne cannot ignore the chances he’s been given and squandered. Or how much of Anne he has done with in a similarly cruel fashion.

She forges forward and this time, he does not follow behind.

“We will not meet again.”

-

Two months pass in identical fashion. Anne continues to see him at church, but no longer treads the familiar path towards his home; has to consciously turn around whenever she pauses to take stock of her surroundings. Even after Anne moves out into a little cottage of her own, not as scrutinized under Matthew and Marilla’s watchful eye, does she compromise her stance or bend a knee to Gilbert’s will. Still, he tries speaking to her once, the following Sunday she moves out. He waits for her after mass by the foot of the stairs, wringing a hat in his hands and smiling politely at all those that pass.

Anne catches on to his scheme and quickly hooks arms with Diana, who peers between the couple curiously but goes along with the conversation. Anne doesn’t so much as glance in Gilbert’s direction when commenting on the contents of Cole’s last missive (having already discussed it ad nauseum with Diana just the other day), and gets flustered upon feeling every inch of his gaze on her back. Anne then impulsively asks to spend the afternoon over tea lest Gilbert get any ideas about potentially following her home.

Diana agrees but does not get any further information out of Anne for the rest of the evening, despite careful prodding and the fact that Anne is bad at keeping secrets altogether.

“They say he hasn’t been painting,” the raven-haired beauty floats casually in order to gauge her new friend’s reaction. Anne pauses at the mention, cup and saucer to her lips, but does not take a sip—an admission of guilt, although of what deed Diana’s still currently guessing. Determined to figure it out, she soldiers on. “There are rumors that he hasn’t touched oil to canvas in weeks. Just bends over his sketchbooks with the air of a man possessed. Mrs. Lynde says his broker has twice come and gone past her porch to little or no success, and that he’s come early this morning and is refusing to leave until Mr. Blythe can produce a painting.”

“How peculiar,” Anne comments with no degree of sincerity to be found. Her blue-grey eyes harden and she directs her attention to dropping another cube of sugar in her tea, stirring it aggressively and causing the liquid to spill unladylike over the brim. Fuming, Anne wonders if he’s found some other muse or inkling to occupy his time, while she darkens and downs the drink in one short, singular gulp.

“Diana, I must be going now.” She excuses herself, perhaps rudely, but Anne needs some time and space to think. Her friend lets her go without putting up too much of a fight, seeing in Anne the look of a canary in a coal mine, and helps her round up her things in a minute.

“Do you need someone to accompany you back? It will be getting dark soon enough.”

“No need!” Anne waves a hand over her shoulder, departing in a cloud of misery and ire.

She makes her way back to her cottage, on the road to Green Gables but closer to the school house from town, as a million thoughts whirr quickly and quietly through her head. Mostly, Anne wonders at the cause of Gilbert’s descent and dearth in creative output, and hoping it to be her if only to spite the artist in her head.

“It would serve him right,” Anne sneers, picturing him hunched in a corner unable to produce another work of art ever again. But the painful tug of her heart makes the statement ring false, suddenly saddened at the thought of his career cutting short and of the loveliness he creates taken prematurely from the world.

 _Gilbert could be prolific_ , she thinks, _comparable to the likes of da Vinci or van Gogh. But not the next or another, because he is in a class of his own._

She ponders this as the sun begins to set, head so occupied and consumed with thoughts of her ill-fated artist, that she ends up once again on the path toward Gilbert’s home. There are lights in the distance emanating softly from the house, so at least Anne knows she’s not in any danger of running into him coming back.

“Curse this muscle memory of mine.” Anne sighs, turning around and trying to retrace her steps. She makes it all of ten yards before a man on a horse knocks her over on the road.

“Apologies, miss!” A dark-haired stranger calls, dismounting swiftly to inspect any damage he’s caused. Years of tree climbing experience has taught Anne how to expertly break her fall and so she pops up immediately, a little bit dusty but fine.

“In future, I’d ask for you to ride more carefully on your routes.”

The figure is tall and, even in the rapidly dimming twilight, Anne can tell that he is handsome; no more than a few years her senior and well-dressed, as a high-class gentleman ought to be. He is clearly visiting because she has never seen or heard of him before on the Island. However, it becomes obvious from the spark of recognition in his almond eyes that he has somehow seen or heard of Anne.

“I know you!” He claims, fumbling around in his saddlebag for three crumpled up pieces of paper. He produces them with a flourish, acting as if Anne is supposed to know what they are, and at her lack of reaction moves to meticulously straighten them out. When he hands them over, creased and wrinkled all over, her eyes strain to make out three beautifully rendered depictions of _her_.

“That’s—”

“You.”

In direct contrast to the situations Gilbert had put her in that day (and that Anne will admit to playing a role in, as well), the portraits themselves are not in any way suggestive or racy: Anne in a boat, Anne on a horse, and Anne laid out on the lake while water laps at her cheek. Charcoal and graphite are his medium of choice, but he still somehow embellishes a blush to her cheeks, a certain dreaminess to her expression, and a warmth to her hair that pulls unmistakably red despite the lack of pigment designating it as such.

Anne takes in a gasping breath. “Is this what he’s been doing this whole time?”

A nod. “He draws of nothing else but you.”

She’s struck silent while staring at the precision of his drawings, distinctly Anne in appearance but somehow so much more than she looks. A yearning that translates through every curverature and line.

“You must be the art broker then.” The one Rachel Lynde saw riding past her front porch this morning.

“Royal Gardner, but please call me Roy.” He extends a hand, which Anne shakes and introduces herself as Miss Shirley, but Anne.

“That’s interesting,” he murmurs.

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I thought your name was Ophelia for the longest time. Only hours ago, Gilbert came home after Church lamenting something along the lines of ‘Oh, my Ophelia is still mad at me, but she remains as beautiful as ever.’ Knowing now that you’re an Anne, I assume the name is some inside joke between you two?”

Anne clears her throat, preferring to change the subject instead. “Are you on your way back to the city, Mr. Gardner?”

He accepts the shift easily enough. “I must, even though I have nothing to show for my troubles.”

“Has something happened with Gilbert?”

“Nothing’s happened. And on top of that? Nothing’s _happening_. Not when Gilbert simply refuses to paint.” He looks to Anne surreptitiously and at the portraits she still holds tenderly in her hands. “He won’t until he can get the very essence of you correct.”

“What do you mean? Are these portraits not considered good enough as they are?”

“To the untrained eye, perhaps. But when you look at enough art and have dedicated your whole life to promoting and preserving it from time, you learn to differentiate between what’s good and what’s _alive_.”

Anne blinks, confused at the terminology and the way it’s being used. “Is there a difference between the two?”

“There's a difference in the way that sunrises and sunsets are considered different—similar in essence, but bring about different effects. Good art makes you feel something. But art that is alive? That makes you _remember._ ”

Anne didn’t even realize that they’d been walking this whole time, until they happen upon the turn leading directly towards her house.

“Artists can have long and successful careers without ever once achieving something that can be considered alive. Yet Gilbert is unique in that he has never created anything but.”

She frowns. “These portraits then—these attempts of his . . . Why is it that he cannot get them right?”

 _Why is it that he can’t get_ me _right?_

Roy looks at her in earnest. “For all of his God-given talents, Gilbert lacks a certain measure of imagination. He cannot paint what his eyes do not perceive, what his ears do not hear, and what his hands cannot touch. He is limited to painting what he knows and knows best, and it seems what Gilbert wants to know and paint more than anything is you. So I implore you Miss Shirley, for my sake and everyone else’s who have yet to experience his art, let him do it. Let Gilbert paint you.”

Anne's heart soars at the same time her physical body recoils, wondering if this isn’t all some elaborate trap he’s concocted. “Did he put you up to this Mr. Gardner? Did Gilbert send you out here to trick me?”

“I’ll admit, he saw you from his window and asked for me to escort you home knowing you would not accept it coming from himself. And I assure you, I had no idea who you were at the time or the nature of your relationship to him even now. But if I may be so bold to say that while I’m not sure where your misunderstanding of him began, Gilbert is a good man. In a lot of ways better than what his circumstances should have made him out to be. He could have easily turned out bitter and resentful of the world, first for leaving him the last of his name and secondly for the way Avonlea has treated him ever since: alone and arms-length, more like some curiosity at the zoo rather than an actual human being. He’s spent years in recluse and you are, perhaps, the first person he’s exhibited any interest in outside of the world that he’s created for himself.”

“And what would you have me do?” Anne cries, feeling maligned at not having anyone comparable to Roy to take her side. “Leave behind everything? Everything I know and have worked for in this world, in order to join him in his?”

Roy sighs and shakes his head, preparing to leave now that he’s fulfilled his friendly duty. “Indulge him, Miss Shirley. If only a little bit, please indulge him.”

-

Mr. Gardner’s words might as well be imprinted in her brain for the amount of time Anne spends thinking about them and about Gilbert by extension. It is especially unfortunate considering the amount of time Anne also spends at school, teaching lessons and helping out her own batch of Queens Academy hopefuls preparing to take the exam in a few, short months. In fact, because she spends _so much_ time thinking about Gilbert, it explains why Anne assumes she’s hallucinating when in the distance, from where she stands at her desk, she can see a silhouette setting up a canvas and easel in the neighboring fields nearby. It looks so real, more distinct than even something Anne’s wide imagination could conjure up, that she doubts herself for a moment, wondering if perhaps it is Gilbert after all.

“Miss Shirley?” One of her students, Paul, raises his hand in question. “What’s that out the window?”

This slight interruption throws off everyone else’s concentration, slates and textbooks abandoned as her students crowd and gather around the far window by the board. Becoming aware of everyone's attention focused solely on him, the mysterious figure waves back, much to the squealing delight of the kids and the older students alike.

“What’s he doing Miss Shirley?”

Barbra answers, “Why he’s painting of course!”

“Well what exactly is he painting?”

Anne squints. “It appears that Mr. Blythe’s latest subject is to be our schoolhouse.”

The class is fully distracted by the commotion, unlikely to return to their reading and maths when there is something much more exciting going on right outside their windows. Given that there is only but an hour left in the day, Anne figures it best to just dismiss them early as a treat. And also because she, too, can’t be sure she can promise them her full attention after this.

They all trail excitedly out the door and she expects one or two of them to approach—kindred Paul Irving and maybe Minnie May, the boldest. But none veer off the beaten track to inquire after his presence, while Gilbert continues painting without once looking up; either not expecting it of them in the first place or had not even entertained the notion of them approaching at all.

Sorrowfully, Anne wonders how many years of seclusion it took to hammer the instinct out of him. Or at what age her students had learned, implicitly, not to seek out Gilbert Blythe.

As she wraps up for the day, doing one last sweep to make sure everything remains neat and in some semblance of order, Anne contemplates giving in. “Only a little. Just for today. To see if he’s changed his mind in these months!” She lets her hair out of its braided coil, smoothing out the tresses as she collects her belongings and slinks shyly out the door. She wishes she’d brought a hat when Anne is blasted with the force of the afternoon sun, reflexively closing her eyes and soaking in the piercing rays.

Of all the seasons, Anne loves Summer best. Not Spring with its flower buds and hatchlings that may not make it past birth, or Fall and Winter signaling an end to all the things she loves most, but Summer—when life is at its biggest and most full, like big band jazz and a sedge of cranes dipping low in the water. Like how Anne never starts a story with a beginning and end, but right in the middle at the point when her characters hold the most control over their fates.

“I’m glad the rumors of you being too indisposed to make art have proven to be false,” Anne calls loudly without leaving the main road, not unwilling to venturre through the thickets of switchgrasses and pampas, but preferring to keep her distance to maintain the bulk of her composure. From her vantage point, she can only make out vague shapes on the tilted stretch of his canvas, something that could be the outline of the tiny schoolhouse and stream.

“This isn’t art,” he shouts back. “It’s a dastardly scheme.”

“A scheme?”

“Obviously, to get your attention!”

Anne rolls her eyes, trying and failing not to be charmed by him completely.

“Well I’m not talking to you!”

“Well you just did!”

It is a downward spiral from there when Gilbert climbs out and begins to walk her home, continuing to do so over the course of the next three weeks under the guise of completing his newest art piece for sale. Anne has a hard time believing much progress has been made when Gilbert sets up only an hour before classes let out and packs it back up by the time she is ready to leave for the day. She even calls him out on it once, childing him for pretending and wasting Mr. Gardner’s time, but Gilbert merely shrugs and says, “trust in the process, Anne. These things always take time.”

Why she even allowed him to walk her home any time past the first, Anne still isn’t entirely sure. It’s a dangerous thing, she knows—prolonged exposure as the days grow shorter and shorter. When the sun sinks lower on the way back from school and GIlbert’s with her like this, so whip-smart and attentive. Conversations are effortless when he’s equal parts thoughtful and flirty, and very easily Anne can imagine them taking a chaperoned promenade around town. He would slip her ribbons and trinkets and press kisses to lips, sneaking brushes to waistlines with sweet nothings on top. It could be so simple, and yet for some reason it’s not. But when they’re together like this, it makes Anne hopelessly forget. And when his hands skim ever so softly against the back of her own, innocent enough to pass off as an accident except for the way he lingers for several moments too long outside of her door, Anne _actually_ forgets and nearly asks him to come in.

To stay over.

_To take._

They don’t talk about That Night or the ensuing argument that follows, Anne’s ultimatum or Gilbert’s lack of an excuse. It isn’t that Anne isn’t holding firm to her position, but that the more time she spends with Gilbert, the less clear it becomes the reasoning behind her convictions.

So she wants him to court her? Anne interrogates that notion.

_Why?_

I deserve what every woman deserves—respect and recognition from the man who will one day be my husband.

_And can that only be displayed through courtship?_

It is the proper way of things.

_Are there not plenty of proper men who go through these formalities and reveal themselves to be nothing more than secret wife beaters and drunks? Has Gilbert not proven to both respect and recognize you thus far?_

Gilbert is a coward. He will not do as such in public, under anyone else’s eyes.

_Will you deny a man his boundaries? When the crux of the problem is that you want to be recognized, not by the man you wish to take on as a husband, but society at large?_

I have spent most of my life being disparaged and mocked: the redhead, the orphan, the truly ridiculous Anne Shirley. Barefoot with bastards if any man can make allowances for her looks. Is it so bad to want to shove it all back in their faces? To proclaim to the world that “Here is a good man who adores me! Who wants to make me his wife!”?

_If you focus too much on your vanity, on some harebrained plot based upon unspecified revenge, you may very well lose him—this very good man of yours. Courtships and marriage should not be your end. Gilbert is worth more than just a simple prize._

_You don’t win once you’re engaged, Anne_

_You win by being happy._

Anne whispers the sentiment under her breath, tasting it on her tongue before she speaks it aloud into the universe.

“What was that?” Gilbert asks, side-eyeing her curiously as they approach the outskirts of her cottage. As intended, Anne smiles to spot the canary yellow coloring of her door.

She responds, “Just thinking.”

“Would you take a penny for your thoughts?”

“Keep the penny, because it’s not so much a thought as I am considering an action.”

“Which is?” He chuckles, staring at her with unfettered affection.

Anne stops and turns, tugging lightly at his collar so that they’re directly face to face. His pupils narrow as Gilbert’s gaze drops automatically to her mouth, swallowing thickly but otherwise unwilling to make a move. She hovers in range, a matter of centimeters away, nose tips brushing and the smell turpentine faint; keeps impossibly still for a span that stretches both seconds and centuries.

“Anne,” he begs and she feels not his lips, but merely the lines of its silhouette.

“Yes, Mr. Blythe?”

“Anne, _please._ ” It is the whine of his voice that makes her give in, to grant him this request as much as she wants it herself.

She bridges the distance, a pleasant pressure at first before Gilbert deepens the kiss, hands flying automatically to her waist and encircling her completely. He pulls Anne closer than close, lifting her slightly so that her feet barely touch the ground, improving upon the angle at which he can lick hungrily into her mouth. It occurs to Anne suddenly that this is her very first kiss and rather strange when compared to the normal progression of romance. But Anne has promised not to compare herself again, and regardless wouldn’t trade this first kiss with Gilbert for the world.

At a certain point, they both need to come up for air. Gilbert takes a gulp and is prepared to dive right back in, but a hand to his chest grinds everything down to a halt. Anne pushes away and he looks like he could cry.

“Tomorrow,” she whispers.

Gilbert’s eyes light up at what sounds to be the beginning of a promise.

“Meet me here tomorrow morning and you can paint me for the day.”

-

They meet outside of her cottage in the early hours of dawn, when a white sheet of fog still winds and wraps its way around ankles like a kitty cat in greeting. The forest around her sits quiet as well, as if it too is waiting for Gilbert to make an appearance.

Anne waits impatiently by the window, trying to distract herself with a book and more scholarly pursuits, but is only partially paying attention as she thumbs through the pages, eyes and ears trained outward for any signs of his arrival. She doesn’t bother playing aloof when she sees him approaching in the distance, cutting a striking figure when appearing from the depths of fall foliage and mist, and wrenches open her door to greet him excitedly beneath its frame. Anne is still in her nightgown and forgoes everything else underneath, the shawl around her shoulders the only thing hiding the sight of her pink, rosebud nipples straining to greet him as well. Partially from the chill and partially in anticipation of his touch.

“Good morning,” she sighs when he is but centimeters away, a kiss to her temple before she ushers him inside. Anne checks to see if he has somehow been followed, a subconscious admission to the illicit nature of this meeting and certain allowances yet to come. Anne knows, before she even really _knows_ , how much of herself she is willing to give away.

Gilbert is on her the minute she turns around, insistent lips pressing hungrily to her hairline and neck and wherever else he can reach. She slots almost perfectly between the columns of his arms, close enough to his chest to feel the hummingbird thrum of Gilbert’s heart. It is frenzied, their reunion, but the most whole Anne has felt in the last four months, no longer a daydream and living entirely in the moment.

She _aches_ despite being wrapped up in his embrace, in every part of her body and somewhere even deeper still.

“Tea?” she murmurs against the press of Gilbert’s lips, dizzy and distracted from the smell of his sweat and musk. Gilbert’s hands are thumbling mindless circles into the flesh of her hips, itching to move lower only he’s waiting for Anne to say the word. She has half a mind to do it, too if he continues touching her like that, driving her to the point of distraction.

Gilbert’s brain is a little too addled to completely process the offer. “Pardon?”

“Tea,” she repeats, peeling away to look up into the hazel pools of his eyes. “To warm you up from the cold?”

At that, Gilbert laughs. Gives one last kiss to the tip of her nose. “I dare say you’re a little more effective than tea when it comes to warming me up, Anne-girl. But yes, I will take a cup if it’s not too much trouble.”

She is grateful for the reprieve from Gilbert’s overwhelming presence, for something to do besides give in entirely to his will. He settles at the table bench while Anne scurries around the open kitchen, fetching a kettle and stoking higher the flames of a dwindling fire. He watches her as she works, only once letting his gaze stray to take in the rest of her modest home, a cottage without a room but decorated to suit Anne’s eclectic style. It also doesn’t escape her the way Gilbert lingers at the sight of her bed against the wall, perfectly made and sorely tempting him to rectify the fact.

“You should probably get dressed,” he says when she sets the mug down in front of him, taking three careful sips and staring at Anne over the brim. “I have something I want to show you.”

She quickly furrows her brows, under the impression that Gilbert wouldn’t let either of them leave until they’re thoroughly debauched and having turned her home into a shrine to shared pleasure, the ghost of his touch lingering in every corner of every space. Gilbert quickly clarifies though, upon seeing the confusion on her face, “No need to bother with petticoats and corsets or the like—we just want to give the illusion that you’re dressed. I don’t plan on running into or being interrupted by anyone today, but just as a precaution. To protect your honor.”

“Are you planning on doing something to put it at risk in the first place?”

“I just want you to be comfortable,” Gilbert grins. “As comfortable as you were when I rescued you in my boat.”

_Soaked and visible beneath her white chemise and drawers._

Anne blushes at the memory and goes to pull a simple frock from her dresser, back facing Gilbert as she pulls her nightgown up and over her body. She listens closely to the way GIlbert stiffens at the sight of her bare behind, his sharp intake of breath as she stands and lets him admire the view. She shivers, imagining his gaze as a tangible caress, pussy clenching around nothing and she almost cries out from the lack of it. Then, embarrassment and wanton behavior catching up to her, Anne quickly covers up.

“Where are we going?” she asks, but still hasn’t turned around. If she so much as _looks_ at Gilbert’s face in this moment, at the no doubt hungry expression twisting his gorgeous features with lust, Anne might throw all thoughts of propriety out the window. Not that she’s clinging to much of it in this moment regardless.

There is a rustling noise before she hears the heavy steps of his approach, stopping not far behind and draping a coat over Anne’s shoulders. “It’ll be cold before mid-afternoon and it’s a decent distance away by water.”

“Are we taking your boat?” she asks, slipping her arms through the sleeves. She likes the way it drapes and smells like oil pastels, of something belonging distinctly to Gilbert, and wraps it closer around her frame.

“To an abandoned farm and garden I found while scouting almost two summers ago.” He takes her by the hand and they pass through Anne’s front doorway together. He waits for her to lock up without once letting go. “Its beauty transcends anything I’ve ever seen in Avonlea, but I always felt that there was something missing from the landscape. I used to think it was so beautiful to make up some inexplicable void, and didn’t think anything of it again until the day I met you.”

“Me?” she asks. “What have I got to do with it?”

They make their way down a side path to where Gilbert’s stashed his boat, stockpiled with enough food and painting supplies to last until the next morning at least. “When I met you, it occurred to me that the garden isn’t meant to be a scene by itself but a backdrop to your own. An enhancement rather than the focal point of it all.”

Anne flushes, pleased, and doesn’t know how to respond; not often struck mute but only in instances where Gilbert speaks as if she is the only thing and person worth painting. She idles and watches as Gilbert pushes them with force off the land, boat shaking mildly before evening out on the water. He rows as easily as he does everything else, relaxed as the sun rises steadily in the east, and whistles a tune that sounds vaguely familiar to her ears.

It takes about twenty minutes to reach their destination, most of which Anne spends admiring the sunrise and nature waking up all around them. She talks his ear off about mornings being her favorite time of day and Gilbert watches her with a tenderness that feels like a hug all the same. When they eventually arrive, he makes a show of trying to carry all of his art and food supplies together, refusing for Anne to list so much as a finger to help. He stumbles five yards ahead before she rolls her eyes and snatches the picnic basket from his grasp.

After readjusting, Gilbert leads her to a clearing hemmed in by birch trees and firs, as if hiding behind their branches is another world in which the fae and fairfolk reside. In Anne’s eyes, she sees nooks and crannies for hidden treasures and leisure, a stone slab to rest against and a canopy of green to keep her secrets. In Gilbert’s, she wonders if he sees things in terms of colors; dark and mossy greens in broader strokes to complement the whites of cherry blossoms and narcissi. If the red paint she spots in his satchel is for the purposes of mixing or solely to depict the tone and vibrancy of Anne’s hair.

“What is this place?” she breathes, unlacing her boots to feel the soft velvet of grass underfoot, wiggling her toes into the dew-dropped patches and sighing.

The artist sets up a little ways away, spreading out a blanket for Anne to rest on comfortably while he paints. “Hester Gray’s garden, although you wouldn’t be familiar with the name. She died many years back and her husband Jordan, the last of the Grays, followed only a decade after that. He built this garden out of devotion to his wife, as a place of worship to the woman he loved most of all. Hester was everything to Jordan, but she fell sick a few years into their marriage. She loved this garden and tended to it with everything she had while her husband tended to her in quite the same way. Jordan wrapped her up in a shawl and brought her out here every day so that she could rest amongst the trees, all the way up until the day that she died. That morning, he picked every rose in the garden and wove them into a blanket. Hester looked up into his eyes, smiled, and then fell permanently asleep. The two of them buried here, together, down in the corner by the poplars.” He points to a headstone overgrown with vines, memorialized but having been forgotten by everything except time.

“How romantical,” Anne breathes, imagining the married couple in her mind, sitting and talking much as she and Gilbert are doing now. Would they suffer the same fate? Would they share the same love? “But tragic.”

“Most relationships are,” he asserts.

“That’s quite the pessimistic view, Mr. Blythe. Do you have no illusions about a grand and eternal love?”

He balances a blank canvas atop a wooden easel, chest-high and no larger than four hand spans across. “Yes, but they’re that: just illusions in the end. Nothing is eternal, Anne. Everything dies and empires fall. All that lasts are stories and art. Man-made things but never man himself.” There is an ancient sadness to his voice that speaks to trauma, deeply-held and leading him to draw such a mournful conclusion. To him, death is not an end but the sentence itself—the words with which Gilbert has assigned meaning to his life and all life ever since. It cuts open, raw, every wound he thinks he’s healed.

Anne pivots, in almost a pirouette on her toes, to face him and face the hard lines of his shoulders, tense and drawn as if he’s expecting enemy fire. Gilbert barely notices as she makes her way closer, coming up from behind and wrapping her arms around his middle. He relaxes, somewhat, in her comforting embrace, but Anne can still feel misery rolling off of him in waves.

Methodically, Gilbert mixes a deep umber with paint thinner whose scent carries over in the breeze, harsh and tickling to the nose, so Anne burrows deeper between his shoulder blades and presses a kiss to his spine. “Are we not man-made things, you and I?” She hopes the sound of it is lost in the folds of his white, linen shirt. “And my love, as well? Is it as fleeting as you think?”

Evidently, he hears her because Gilbert immediately turns around, paintbrush and palette set aside in favor of holding her face between his hands. “Do you love me, Anne? Truly?” He searches her expression for any hint of a lie.

Anne decides there’s no point in denying it longer. The sentiment overflows from her heart.

“Gilbert, I’m afraid I’m _scandalously_ in love with you,” she laughs and barely gets the sentence out when he crushes their mouths together in a kiss. Anne feels it down to the tips of her toes, one of his hands sliding to grab a fistful of hair while the other trails slowly down to the small of her back. Gilbert is forceful, a typhoon in his affections, and unrelenting as he licks and kisses Anne into a heart-stopping tizzy.

“I love you, too. Indescribably.”

“And I will prove your theory wrong.”

-

It is easy enough posing for one of Gilbert’s portraits, save for the fact that she is as naked as the day she was born. The most intimate parts of her are hidden as Anne lays belly-down on the ground with a book, the same one from earlier while Gilbert works on his underpainting mere paces away.

Anne expects to feel somewhat embarrassed throughout the process, exposed as she is and in a public setting no less, but quickly comes to realize that Gilbert is there but not present, in a world of his own inaccessible to those not privy to the inside of his brain. Gilbert looks at her without the usual heat in his eyes, a focused sort of attention that scratches beyond the surface of sight, observing and recreating in a way that is clinical but not completely devoid of passion. Not if the tenting in his lower regions is to be acknowledged.

The canopy of trees blocks out much of the sky, but snatches of sunlight filter in through tiny gaps in the foliage. A beam of it settles on a spot just below her shoulders, warming Anne while creating new freckles as she reads; completely absorbed in _Jane Eyre_ when a rustling snaps Anne out of her reverie.

Gilbert settles beside her, casting a shadow in his wake.

“Are you finished?” she hums, stretching out after laying in one position for so long. Gilbert watches with a pointed hunger that makes her squirm, draping his coat across her body so that she can more modestly sit up.

“With the underpainting, for now. It’ll take a moment to dry, but in the meantime I need to use your body as a reference.”

“A reference for what?” Anne pulls the fabric closer, but there remains more parts of her exposed than is hidden safely from his view.

Gilbert pulls paints from inside his satchel and lays them out in a line beside her pale, supple legs. “My palette,” he explains. “I want to get your coloring accurately and not an approximation of such.”

“How so?” She’s curious, watching him squeeze out a generous amount of titanium white.

Gilbert doesn’t allow Anne to watch for much longer, turning her body so that her exposed back is in view. She feels him swirl a swatch of cool paint below her neck, tickling the nape, and raising gooseflesh as he drags and mixes and rubs color into her skin. “Equal parts white, to cadmium orange and light yellow—two parts red to one part crimson and yellow ochre.” More swirls, more paint, and Gilbert’s breath on her spine; and so on and so forth until he memorizes the formula for every shade and discoloration she could possibly possess.

Anne grows more and more distressed throughout the process of his mixing, biting down on her lip from crying out her arousal. It feels so deliberate, the pressure of his hands against her skin, and she has to choke back a moan when his breath blows cool against a certain spot behind her ear.

“Anne you’re shivering” he realizes as he goes to wipe her down with a cloth, probably thinking it’s due to something external like the cold. But on the contrary, Anne is feeling incredibly feverish and taut, his close proximity doing her zero favors in the face of the way she _wants_.

“Gil,” she pleads, not quite sure what exactly she’s pleading for; just knows that if he doesn’t do something, she might truly implode.

There is concern in his voice when he asks her, “What is it? Is this too much? Do you want to go home?”

Anne turns around, letting the coat drop and pool at her waist, her whole body exposed while begging him with every bone to “touch me more. Touch me _there._ ”

Gilbert looks like Anne just knocked the air out of his lungs, drinking in the sight of her freckled collarbone and breasts, before greedily diving in.

“I was worried you wouldn’t ask,” he growls and nearly bowls Anne over onto the grass, knocking her backwards and pinning her beneath his straining body. He must have been equally as affected because his cock feels hard and insistent against her stomach, beading and leaking in the spot right beside her navel. His weight is a heady thing on top of her as Gilbert's lips attack her own, peppering kisses up and down her jawline, before lowering himself to take a nipple into his mouth. He rolls and squeezes the other peak between gentle, paint-stained fingers, applying just enough pressure to send a jolt straight to Anne’s already throbbing clit. She keens and brings her hands to the back of Gilbert’s head, fisting a handful of hair to direct him exactly where she needs.

Her fever increases tenfold beneath his masterful ministrations, pulse points fluttering as he moves lower and lower towards her mound. Carefully, Gilbert splits apart her thighs and then her dripping folds, mesmerized by the glistening raised bump of her clitoris, and nearly swallows his tongue at the way she begs him, “ _Please._ ”

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs and maintains eye contact when he licks his tentative first stripe, a sensation that sends Anne’s back arching sharply off the ground. A firm grip on her thighs brings her slowly down to Earth, and holds her there for eons as he laps with fervor at her taste. The sight and sounds of it, wet and sloppy but his enthusiasm shining through, makes Anne moan with abandon into the emptiness of the sky.

Gilbert circles and grazes inexpertly with his tongue, up and down and around where she needs him with a desperation so acute, Anne springs salty tears from her eyes. He lingers teasingly near her entrance, dipping in and out softly with his tongue, and when he finally dives all the way in, nose bumping against her clit and soft appendage filling her in a way that isn’t nearly enough, Anne whines and clenches and bears down on him all at once. His ensuing chuckle sends pleasurable vibrations all throughout, plunging in and out of her faster while the errant rub of his nose finally sends Anne over the edge.

She shakes and shatters beneath him, vision spotting as her moans turn breathy and guttural. It is primal, the way Anne bears her breasts in the air, arching in climax because Gilbert’s released his steadying grip from her thighs. It is entirely so that he can slip a finger inside, knuckle-deep and thick, and swallowed so easily he adds another one to match. Anne’s walls are still fluttering from the come down when he penetrates her with his digits, her dear beloved determined to bring her to peak again and begins to piston with precision.

“ _Gil, Gil, Gil”_ she pants, spreading her legs wider to accommodate him as he pumps into her with a force that makes Anne scream. He’s hitting a spot inside of her that she didn’t know existed, filling her in a way she couldn’t believe was even possible. And when he adds in a third to stretch Anne out even more, she has an out of body experience, babbling incoherently as Gilbert continues to rub her through it all. He circles in spots that aren’t directly on her clit, building her up to deliver a third orgasm not long after, achingly painful but sweet all the same.

Soft kisses to her abdomen, hips, and inner thighs. “My beautiful girl. My Ophelia. My Anne with an E.”

She hears him fumble with something and looks up in time to see him discreetly tending to his needs.

“You, too,” she sighs, watching him free himself through halfway lidded eyes. Anne barely finds the strength to sit up when her body’s still pulsating from the aftershocks of pleasure.

“What’s that, love?”

“I want to make you feel good, too. Show me how?”

Gilbert nods and Anne takes him gently in hand, marveling at his cock and the way it weeps from neglect. There’s enough precum to lessen the burn of friction as she jerks him, but still Anne slides the cooling remnants of her fluids along both palms as lubrication for the deed. She doesn’t really have to be an expert in handjobs when it takes all of ten strokes and the sight of her, hot and prostrated, for ropes of white to dribble messily down her fist, her stomach, and breasts.

And in the afterglow of sex, she thinks that maybe Gilbert is the art and artist all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyways, this is what happens when you don't outline and then also accidentally write plot.
> 
> This is also the longest update I've ever written, clocking in at around 8.5K, and I've spent so long editing it, none of these sentences really hold meaning anymore. That being said, if any of it is like, blatantly incoherent, please let me know. My self-indulgent tendencies can very easily leak into actual word salads sometimes/all of the time/the whole entire time. And while I know this about myself, I also refuse to fix it lol.
> 
> Probably one more chapter left? To tie up loose strings.
> 
> love you all the most xoxoxoxo
> 
> -John William Waterhouse's [The Lady of Shalott](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Lady_of_Shalott_-_Google_Art_Project_edit.jpg)


	4. autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire and this is the result. Despite what you might think, this story has a happy ending, I swear.

The lovebirds spend the better part of a month wrapped up in each other’s arms (and other extremities not suitable to be mentioned in polite society, aloud). Gilbert, predictably, spends this time painting and keeping entirely to himself, while Anne's days pass by in a haze of reading lessons and students, ushering them quickly out the door when the school day wraps, before returning to him and a cottage barely big enough for them both. In the evenings, they'll trade off on cooking dinner, although Anne takes over more often than not when it becomes apparent that Gilbert is talented in many regards, but keeping the stew from burning is apparently not one of his various skills. So in recompense, he’ll clear the table of plates and utensils, soaking the crockery in the wash bin with sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Later, she’ll read aloud by the fire while he runs a steady brush through her hair, fifty strokes per section, as he admires the coloring in contrast to the freckled cream of her skin. Some nights, Gilbert will sketch sitting some distance away, the better to take in the sight of Anne prostrate, legs crossed and tossed over the side of an armrest as she stares back and recounts her day. Anne could be talking to a wall for all the attention he pays her, too absorbed in his craft to do anything but grunt when he has to go back and erase a certain line or discovers he’s been a little too heavy-handed in her shading.

Eventually, Gilbert will reach a point where his vision clouds over, sketchbook and charcoals abandoned as he reaches out for her fervently.

Anne drinks him in like bone-broth simmering over the fire for hours, nutrient-rich and fortifying to make up for all the ways he wears her out.

In her whole life, she has never felt bliss such as this, tucked under his chin and basking in the afterglow of love.

Tonight, it is much the same, the two of them tangled and tired and ready to retire for the night.

“Anne-girl,” Gilbert murmurs into the crown of her head, muffling the syllables but loud enough to somewhat make out the words. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Hmmm?” She is already halfway asleep and annoyed that he's preventing her from slipping the rest of the way. Plus, his question seems silly to ask, considering her routine does not vary much due to school, and has done so considerably less as the weather grows cooler and Gilbert clings even closer by her side. Winter is a difficult time for many, but especially for the last of the Blythe’s, who is still haunted by memories of loss that embed itself within the crystalline structure of snowflakes that fall onto the window pane outside. Anne doesn’t particularly mind, seeing as how Gilbert’s presence doesn’t hamper her movements, and acts as a natural enhancement to her lifestyle overall.

He whispers, “There’s somebody that I want you to meet.”

“Who?” she asks, but Gilbert merely shakes his head.

“It’ll be easier to explain when you meet them,” is his enigmatic reply _—_ all that he is willing to divulge, while keeping mum on the rest.

She prods him for more information, yet Gilbert remains surprisingly tight-lipped.

Her lover is a plainspoken man, but even more so after sex, and it feels like taking advantage when Anne bombards him with questions in between lazy caresses and sighs. Gilbert responds with tightened arms around her torso and whispered confessions until they both fall asleep. Everything she learns about him, Anne tucks away in her heart.

The fact that he is engaged does not come up once.

-

Anne wakes up before the sunrise to a still-warm bed, the other half empty and in her cottage, alone. She squints to make out the lingering sight of stars outside the window, slowly fading into navy-pink skies to make way for clouds, dark and pregnant with the promise of rain. Anne reaches over to catch his fading heat in her palms and it strikes her then, staring at the indentation left in swirl patterns on the sheets, how familiar she’s become to Gilbert’s presence in her life, and how unsettled she feels waking up without him nestled by her side. The cold makes his absence feel ever more acute, and Anne shivers as she draws a discarded shawl up and over her bare shoulders.

She coaxes a small flame out of the smoldering embers of last night’s fire, scarcely big enough to last until she has to leave for school in a handful of hours. As Anne makes her way over towards her vanity in the corner, she spots a mysterious note tucked under a single sprig of phlox.

_Gone to Charlottetown on a personal matter. WIll return sometime this weekend, as discussed. Don’t miss me too much. - Gil._

And then on the reverse side, even messier:

_P.S. I can picture the frown tugging at the corner of your lips as I write this, no doubt upset that I didn’t give you a proper goodbye. Just know that I tried, only to discover that rousing you from sleep is perhaps a more difficult task than raising the dead._

_With love, Gilbert._

She clutches the note to her chest, as if through contact she can transfer the love from paper to heart. She thinks it might even work, considering the way Anne warms from the inside-out.

-

Anne doesn’t tell anyone about her relationship with Gil, as sacred and intimate as it is, including Diana, who has her suspicions that she brings up over tea.

“Did you know that Gilbert Blythe is engaged?” the newly-minted Mrs. Wright asks, apropos to nothing. Anne suspects she’s been drawing connections from the way Anne speaks around his presence in her life and has been itching the share the news, Gilbert's sudden business call to Charlottetown seeming the perfect opportunity to do so.

“Engaged?” she swallows sharply, heart plummeting into her stomach along with the scalding chamomile she’s ingested. The world around her pinches in, muffled and narrower as Anne looks to Diana in surprise.

“Yes, and for over a year now I believe.”

_Twelve whole months he's been engaged—twice the time he's even known her._

Anne blinks back hot tears. “To whom?” she asks, trying to keep her tone interested but detached. 

Diana picks up the tongs to place another sandwich on her plate, not oblivious to Anne's distress, but to the magnitude of it all. More than likely, she thinks Anne just has some passing fascination with the artist, at most a thinly-veiled crush, but could not begin to predict the extent to which Anne's been compromised and debauched. 

“A debutante over in Charlottetown. Her family is _very_ well off and _very_ well connected, being one of the more prominent ones on Prince Edward Island, although Aunt Jo finds them all just a tad bit stuffy. Still, I think Mr. Rose plays something of a patron-type role over Mr. Blythe, even though I’m sure his art does well enough on its own to pay back the debt he’s incurred tenfold. I doubt he’d be engaged to Miss Rose if that wasn’t the case.”

“What do you mean?”

Her friend takes another sip of tea, nowhere near done with information she’s determined and fixed to deliver. “Well John Blythe passed away when Gilbert was still not yet of age, and the family’s finances were in shambles, until it became clear that Gilbert possessed a talent untapped. He lived in Charlottetown for a spell, to learn and pick up some different skills and techniques, a rotation of different teachers, until Mr. Blythe perfected his craft. It is during this time and place where I assume he became well acquainted with Miss Rose, only they did not get engaged until much later, after he had already returned back to Avonlea and has remained ever since.”

“How come I’ve never heard of this before?” Anne cries, but thankfully keeps the more physical expression of tears at bay.

“It’s all very cloak and dagger, to be honest, and the well of information has long since dried up. Even in the beginning, nobody could speak to any details outside of the ones provided in the announcement section of the Charlottetown Gazette and since then, Mr. Blythe has only traveled to Charlottetown twice for business. Both times, the two spent hardly more than an hour’s worth talking amiably in a tea shop before suddenly parting ways.”

“Then how is it that—”

“—they’re still engaged?” the raven-haired beauty finishes, staring carefully at Anne. “Who’s to say? It could be the case that they’ve maintained correspondence through letters and he's gone to town to settle matters and to also finally set a date. Even now, the nature of Gilbert Blythe’s relationships remain a mystery to us all.”

Anne is devastated to discover that she has been lumped in with Diana’s understanding of “us.” That in conversation, her name does not crop up in tandem with his own; separate entities that have no reason to ever cross paths.

That Gilbert is engaged comes as a serious blow, but the fact that he deceived Anne all the while is the one that destroys her most thoroughly in the end.

Suddenly, her lungs can’t find enough oxygen to breathe.

“Are you alright, Anne? You’re looking a bit peaked.” The concern is evident in Diana’s obsidian eyes.

She tries to force a smile, a reassuring mask to hide the way she is slowly falling apart at the seams. “It’s just . . . a lot to process, I think. A particularly juicy bit of gossip, as Tillie would no doubt say.”

The joke falls flat, dispassionately given and therefore dispassionately received, but Diana moves on while Anne cannot help but remain rooted in place.

-

She makes the familiar trek to the orchard on simple muscle memory alone, thoughts swirling around in her head and coalescing into a mood that could wreck entire cities like storms.

Gilbert— _engaged_?

Anne can barely see straight, inundated with images of his throat as she throttles him to death.

“The sheer _audacity_ of this man,” she hisses, storming up to his door, half a mind to kick it in before recognizing the improbability of her success. She is nowhere near strong enough, even with the amount of rage and adrenaline currently coursing through her veins. So alternatively, Anne knocks, politely and with a poise she does not normally possess, before Gilbert answers with a smile that is warm enough to make her almost forget.

“Anne-girl! You're here!” Only he doesn’t pull her into a bone-crushing hug. A pity, considering it would be enough to assuage the most biting parts of her anger. In this, Gilbert continues to effectively dig his own grave.

She doesn’t dare yell some of the more choice phrases on her tongue, waiting to come inside before letting the accusations fly.

He swiftly steps aside to let Anne into the entryway, a different sight altogether when there’s enough light to make out the rest of the house as well. It doesn’t escape the redhead that the last time she was here, it was after she had slipped and fallen into a series of events that would alter the course of her future forever.

Anne hears, from the parlor, the quiet humming of a girl.

“Gilbert Blythe, I swear to God if that’s your fiancé in the next room, and she is whom you made me anticipate meeting all the way up to today, I will end your career. Your entire life, if I have to.”

His expression falls swiftly, and is replaced with fear and trepidation instead.

“I can explain.”

She scoffs, pushing past him and stomping all the way down the hall. “I know how engagements come about, _Mr. Blythe_. That is, normally through courtship, and explains why you were so hesitant to grant me one as well. It appears you’ve reached your quota and I meant nothing to you, after all.” The words fall bitter, in an attempt to wound, but manages to wound both speaker and receiver in equal measure.

Anne rounds the corner into the parlor and locks eyes with a beautiful blonde, curls piled high and half-finished on his easel. The subject matter, Anne notices next, is just as beautiful in person as is depicted by Gilbert’s hands.

The hands that cannot paint what he does not know.

Does Gilbert _know_ Winnie? In the same carnal way he knows Anne?

_Have I been deceived all along? Walked into a trap of his own particularly cruel design?_

A choked sob wracks her body and renders Anne unable to see, tears flowing freely when she turns around to flee.

His artwork serves as explanation enough, she doesn't need to hear words of platitude and fault.

Anne is a fool and ruined one at that.

“Anne, wait!” she hears, but she is already halfway out the door; can barely make out her surroundings but knows that anywhere far away from him is the goal.

Gilbert overtakes her swiftly, one hand gripping firmly to her wrist, and she turns around to claw him, kicking and screaming all the way.

“LET GO OF ME!” Anne shrieks, startling birds into flight.

He refuses to yield and wrestles her firm between his arms. “If you promise not to run and that you’ll listen to what I have to say.”

Anne tries to wrench herself from the cage that is his embrace. “What can you tell me that I don’t already know?” she spits. "That you’re engaged to the blonde you’ve been painting and that I’ve been a fool this whole time?”

“Formerly engaged,” a stranger’s voice cuts in. “Although, I cannot speak to whether or not you’ve been a fool. That one, I leave to Mr. Blythe to protest.”

Anne twists her body to locate the owner of the voice, Winnifred Rose standing, indecently amused, a little ways to the right.

“Strange as this is to admit, I am actually quite chuffed to be meeting the woman I’ve been unceremoniously dumped for. Anne Shirley, I presume? My name is Winnifred Rose.” Her pale hand is extended, ostensibly in greeting.

Desperately, Anne looks between the blonde and her beau. Confused, heartbroken, and angry, she is fit to explode. “What,” she grits through her teeth, “the hell is going on?”

Gilbert loosens his hold but does not step away, unwilling to put space between them in case she decides to turn tail. “Nothing that couldn’t be explained indoors.”

“A brilliant thought!” Winnie turns to go first, laughing when she looks back to observe the two locked in and preoccupied by a battle of wills; Anne refuses to lead the way and Gilbert is reluctant to turn his back, so they compromise by holding hands and head in, side by side.

Anne hates the way his touch elicits such a physical response; even in the depths of despair, her skin hums with pleasure in the places they connect.

“Where to begin?” Winnie asks, settling into the lounge chair she sat in for presumably hours before. The one in the painting Anne contemplated knocking over on her way. She and Gil settle into the couch with their hands still entwined.

“Well I guess congratulations are in order, since I am engaged once again. Not to Gilbert,” she clarifies, “but some older gentleman overseas. The portrait is to be my gift and what will eventually seal my fate." Winnie pauses and looks, forlorn, out the window. "I thought it would be funny if such a thing was painted by the man I was promised to first. A little amusement as a consolation for entering into a marriage, far from my desire.”

“Must you marry this man?” Anne asks, not immune to the sadness that etches itself into every line of Winnie’s face. It mars her features considerably, but she remains beautiful despite.

“If not this man, then another. So why bother to delay?”

“Will you not hold out for one that pleases you? Whom you can love and stirs some closely-held part of your soul?”

Winnie winces and brings a hand up to the column of her throat, stroking the length in an attempt to massage the lump that holds back a sob. “I’m afraid, dearest Anne, there does not exist such a man, for it is not men my soul prefers, and yet am still expected to espouse.”

Realization dawns sharp and sorrowful in her heart, and Anne could weep from the sympathy she already holds for her beloved Cole and Aunt Jo.

“Are you sure?” she asks, not of Winnie’s sexuality but her decision to marry and pretend and live a life that will never quite be the truth.

Having had years to contemplate her fate, the blonde only nods, and sheds one singular tear.

“I had hoped to marry Gilbert so we could grow old together as friends. But he would resent me forever if I were to separate true love.”

“I wouldn’t live long enough to resent you,” he responds to Winnie, but his eyes rest solely on Anne.

She blushes, greatly affected, and knows that she feels much the same way; had gone through iterations of it earlier, when she believed Gilbert to be engaged.

He takes a deep breath while lifting a delicate hand to her face, and caresses her skin like he’s handling a most precious work of art. “I thought I’d be fine marrying Winnie, because it meant that I wouldn’t have to feel so alone. But meeting you, Anne— _loving you_ , Anne. It made me remember, for the first time in a long time, what it is to be _alive_.”

-

When Gilbert takes her to bed that night, it feels different from every other night, and lingers between them, unspoken, as he begins shedding Anne of her layers one by one. She can’t help the shiver that runs throughout her body, cold air raising goosebumps for every patch of skin come exposed. Gilbert continues undressing her with hands steady enough to create, radiating assurance in every movement because he's done this all with Anne before.

There is a crackle of electricity that unsettles the room, charged particles and equally charged caresses as Gilbert traces up and down her sides. Fingers roam and knead along the most sensitive parts of her skin, and by the time he makes it to her bloomers, dragging the soft fabric down her calves to inspect the state of her cunt, Anne is already soaked and desperate from the effects of his attentions.

“I’m ready,” she whispers, letting the words hover and drift, waiting for Gilbert to pluck them out of the air in the same way she wants him to pluck her maidenhood, too.

“For what?” he teases, crowding her up against the headboard and feathering kisses along her jaw. Two fingers slide into her slick heat with ease, spreading her and working her with all the precision of an artist. Anne cries out, arching into his touch, but just as the pressure starts to build low in her belly, Gilbert quickly retreats and brings those same fingers to his mouth and _sucks_. She watches with heavy-lidded eyes as he licks everything clean, Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows the product of her desire.

Anne throbs at the lack of him, feeling more and more like a chasm unfilled, and needing the fullness of not just fingers, but Gilbert's cock.

She pounces to rid him entirely of his clothes, to level the playing field because he’s still fully dressed. She yanks at drawstrings and buttons with single-minded determination, marveling at how he strains for her before Anne takes his member eagerly in hand. Unsurprisingly, it takes just two pumps to get Gilbert all the way hard, thick and curved towards the head, with veins she wants to feel catching against her when she rides him until morning.

She is about to line him up and plunge in, before Gilbert stops her with both hands wrapped gently around a wrist.

“It might hurt,” he warns, hazel eyes boring into her own. Anne could swim in the murky depths of them forever, but there's something she needs to do first.

“I don’t care. I want to feel you filling every inch of me. Pounding. Molding me to fit around you, where I belong.”

Gilbert groans and twitches pathetically beneath her palm, beads of precum springing that she’s desperate to taste. “Don’t say things like that if you want me to last.”

She tugs so that his member touches, soft, against her dripping entrance, and just that minimal amount of contact is enough to make Anne whine. “I don’t need you to last, Gil. I just need you _inside_.”

Anne’s second attempt to sheath him goes just as well as the first.

Gilbert slips like water from her grasp. “Not yet, Anne. Your body isn’t loose enough to take it. I need to stretch you out.”

“Then hurry up and do it,” she commands, but Gilbert takes his sweet time with her anyway.

“Anything for you, my love.” It is both sarcastic and sincere.

He starts off with a kiss, first to her lips as his tongue travels and roams, forceful enough to leave Anne short of gasping when they part. Her oval nails scrape stripes across the wide expanse of his back, feeling feral when Anne bears her breasts against his tightly-suctioning mouth. Gilbert laves hungrily at a nipple while returning the same two fingers to her womanhood below, playing her like a fiddle and working Anne up to her peak. After so many nights of experimentation and play, Gilbert knows exactly how she likes it, and is never withholding in his generous displays.

He rubs in slow, purposeful circles inching closer to her nub, and delivers four successive taps before her vision fully whites out. Anne screams her release, shaking so hard Gilbert has to spread a palm against her ribcage to keep her still enough to aim. Her walls clench and flutter when he slots a third digit inside, building her to a high she will never reach on her own. And when he presses a thumb to her still throbbing clit, messy and slick as he continues pumping her quick, Anne wails and shatters all over again, lifting high off the bed as her soul ascends into space.

“Are you ready?” Gilbert asks, breathless, as if coming back from a sprint.

The ache is deeper now, less insistent, but still reverberates through Anne; a symphony of bass notes, penetrating bone and settling deep inside the marrow.

“Please,” she begs, and watches as Gilbert moves to slot himself inside. Her head sinks sideways from where his forearm dips into the bed, bearing most of his weight as he guides his member into Anne’s entrance with care.

She wants to wrap her legs around his torso and get this over with quick, welcoming pain if it means coupling with Gilbert that much faster.

He continues sliding in inch by tortuous inch, giving Anne ample time to adjust, while checking in with her every step of the way, concern and boundless patience carved into the furrow of his brow.

“Is this okay?”

She grits her teeth and demands for more, until he’s plunged down to the hilt and throbbing in the deepest parts of her form. “Move,” she hisses, and to this command, Gilbert is quick to obey.

Pumping, uncoordinated, he presses open-mouthed kisses to her pulse points and lips; fists the sheets with white knuckles to maintain some small measure of control. Anne senses how desperately Gilbert wants to pound into her with abandon, to take his pleasure in all the ways her body will allow.

But try as she might, she can’t will herself into bliss. The first minute of sex isn’t enjoyable at all; not because it hurts, but because she isn't used to feeling so _full_.

Anne eventually opens her eyes to see the naked reverence on his face.

“You’re everything,” he breathes and it ghosts, soft, against her cheeks. “You feel— _fuck_ , you feel so good. So tight. So _perfect_.”

He picks up the pace, gradually, before finding a rhythm that dislodges tiny moans from the back of Anne’s throat. Her breasts jiggle from the force, and Gilbert rolls a nipple in between his top and bottom and teeth.

“Tell me I’m yours.”

She complies. “You’re mine.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“More than anything, Gil.”

“Tell me—”

She wraps her legs around him as she had always intended, heels digging into his buttocks when Gilbert hits a spot so deep she sees _stars_. The fire in Anne's stomach burns ever stronger and intense, threatening to reach inferno if he continues at this speed and this angle. “You’re mine, Gilbert Blythe. For an eternity and more, because that’s how long I intend to keep you. To have you. To _love_ you.”

She moans, unabashed, when he brings an answering thumb to her clit, abandoning the rest of her speech to remain here, in this moment, with Gil. Anne curls her fingers into his hair for purchase when she comes a third and final time, inner walls fluttering in time with the convulsions that sweep through and devastate the rest of her when she shatters. Milking him like that, it doesn’t take much longer for Gilbert’s hips to stutter then stop, withdrawing just quick enough to prevent from fully spilling inside.

“Anne—” he groans and collapses on top, head buried into the crook of her neck as he struggles to catch his breath. She rolls out from underneath to replace his body weight with her own, cheek against his collarbone as Anne shifts to get homey.

“Thank you," she whispers.

“For?”

“Being gentle? For making it good. And for everything else.”

He lifts a hand to push some of Anne’s matted hair from her face. “Everything else?”

“For loving me, like this. For all that you are."

He coaxes a gentle finger beneath her chin, tilting it upwards so that they can lock eyes in the dark. The hearthfire flickers and wanes as it burns down to its end, and she will have to revive it if they aren’t to freeze overnight. Goosepimples appear as her sweat and fluids dry down, but right now, she’s only focused on Gilbert and all he has to say. “I haven’t done right by you at any step along the way. I should have left you well enough alone, but instead took liberties and pestered you even after you withdrew. I have messed up a countless number of times, hurt you and made you feel as if you weren’t worthy of the respect every woman deserves. And yet, somehow, you’ve forgiven me and have chosen to love me despite it all.” He swallows thickly, his anguish and guilt so apparent in the liquid welling up in his eyes. “If anything, _I_ should be the one thanking _you_.”

She wipes away his tears, her heart ready to burst, so saturated with love for this man who has forgotten how it feels; who’s been alone for so long, he rusts and creaks when they kiss, and holds her too tight from fear she could slip away from his grasp. “I cannot claim that forgiveness came easy, even though I understood your dilemma and admire your loyalty to a childhood friend. But loving you wasn’t a choice, just another part of me you unearthed, and so fiercely, it makes me wonder if I hadn’t loved you all along.”

“Let’s get married, Anne. I’m serious.”

She can’t help but roll her eyes. “Gilbert, you’ve only _just_ ended your engagement to Winnie. I doubt the news has even made it past Rachel Lynde’s mouth.”

“So you don’t want to get married?” He pouts suddenly, childlike and sullen.

Anne scoots up far enough to give him a peck on the lips. “Of course I do, but not for a little while.”

“Well how long is a little while?”

Her lips purse in contemplation. “A few months, at least. One for the dust to settle, another two to court, and then three for the engagement. So, in total, half a year.”

“Half a year?”

“Give or take.” Anne shrugs, amused by his incredulity. “Half a year and then I’ll marry you, Gilbert Blythe.”

-

Fall fades and hardens into the bleakness of winter, but the dreary grays of December are hardly enough to put a damper on her mood, and especially not when there are things to be done in preparation for Roy’s arrival. Anne looks forward to his visits, as few and far between as they are, and his uncomplicated effervescence that ropes everyone around him into being unequivocally charmed. Roy also has the benefit of being one of the few people privy to the knowledge of her relationship, and she’s thankful for not being made to feel like a sneak whenever he’s around. The strain of keeping up airs week to week, of sitting separate at Church and good-naturedly fielding questions about her prospects from Rachel Lynde, starts wearing on Anne like a woolen winter coat, so it is nice to have company that _knows_ and does not question when Gilbert stands too close or lingers too long at her side.

“When’s the last time you cleaned?” Anne coughs, taking a firm hand to the parlor curtains to release some of the dust. She watches as the motes glimmer and gleam in the light, and fall like snowflakes onto the antique carpeting below.

“I’m not sure I recall.” Gilbert leans against the doorframe, unhelpfully watching as she tries to straighten out the room.

Anne levels an appalled look over her shoulder, pausing by the upright piano in danger of buckling beneath the weight of thirty odd textbooks and tomes. “Come again?”

“I really only keep my bedroom, the kitchen, and studio in order. The rest of the house gets a thorough cleaning twice a year, at most.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Gilbert prickles, immediately on the defensive. “It’s not as if Gardner ever notices or cares.”

“It isn’t in his nature to make a comment either way.” Anne sweeps out of the room in search of cleaning supplies and a broom. Her beau trails along after, hot and nipping at her heels.

“Has he made such a favorable impression that you’re going to such lengths to tidy up?”

“Has he wronged you in such a way that you’ve never once made the attempt?”

If she stopped fussing for a moment and looked a tiny bit closer, she’d be able to categorize his grimace as just an ill-concealed sulk. But naturally, Anne doesn’t notice for another long while, and grows almost annoyed at his lack of cooperation.

“I just don’t see why you’re going through so much effort.”

“Do you not consider Roy a friend?”

“Yes, but I don’t like that you consider him one as well.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but Gilbert won’t stop without first bearing the bulk of his thoughts. “I don’t like that you refer to him as ‘Roy’ so casually in conversation, when you’ve met him, what? Only twice? And he’s got you in your best dress, thinking about how to ask him to stay over for dinner. A lamb and vegetable roast that took you _hours_ to prepare and—”

Anne seals his lips with a kiss, before pulling away with a grin. “Are you jealous, Gil?”

“Of course.” She is not surprised by his honesty, having been released from his engagement and therefore free to bear his heart on his sleeve. “What if he steals you away?”

“You would never let that happen,” she scoffs and returns to her task, namely scrubbing the windows clear through layers of grime and debris.

“It doesn’t escape me that you didn’t mention anything about _you_ not letting it happen.”

Anne rolls her eyes, but secretly finds his whinging rather cute. “Leaving you is an impossibility in the same vein as pigs flying and Hell freezing over. Whether you like it or not, you are stuck with me for life.”

He circles both arms around her waist in search of physical validation, palms splayed against her ribcage to bring her closer into his embrace. Anne melts against his chest and sighs, content; all attempts at cleaning abandoned in deference to the way he nuzzles at her neck.

“For life?” he questions.

She feels the rumblings of her tenor working its way to her heart. “For as long as you’d have me. I’m scandalously in love with you, after all.”

The word _scandalously_ activates something in his brain, and when he pulls at the knotting keeping her skirts fixed in place, any attempt at cleaning is _definitely_ abandoned, while Roy is subjected to the same level of disarray once again.

Just as Gilbert intended.

-

It isn’t that Anne is disallowed from spending time in Gilbert’s studio, but that there’s some undeniable sort of barrier barring Anne from the space; an invisible force that rejects even the _contemplation_ of approach.

The artist is far from responsible, being as open and inviting as he is, but Anne cannot bring herself past the threshold of the door, and prefers to call Gilbert into the kitchen if he requests some sort of beverage or snack. Even though she’s bursting with curiosity over his completed works and those still currently in progress.

But on the eve of her wedding, something shifts in the air, and calls to Anne like a siren’s song from her bridal room upstairs.

Diana sleeps soundly in the space to her right and continues to dream even after the bride she’s supposed to be guarding slips away.

This room Anne leaves is an unfamiliar space, threadbare and vacant because she spends her nights in Gilbert’s arms. But the pretense of propriety is needed for the purposes of her honor, which has long since been compromised to no one’s knowledge but her own. Still, it is sweet of Diana to volunteer to chaperone their activities overnight (despite the way her friend has no intentions of doing anything of the sort).

Anne’s footfalls squeak quietly and echo even quieter in the dark, until she reaches the doorway situated towards the back of the house. A cool breeze blows past Anne's shoulder from the window kept perpetually propped open, airing out the smell turpentine and oil paints as they dry gradually down to a matte.

The lamplight she’s holding does little to illuminate the room, but to little degree frustration since it appears much the same from her usual vantage point outside. The only real difference is that she can now see Gilbert’s canvases head-on.

His preference is to have multiple paintings going on, bouncing from easel to easel to keep his concentration finely-tuned. But since Roy’s visit last month, he hasn’t started anything new; cooped up with Anne and counting the days until their union. She had assumed he was working on _something_ though, from the way he’ll slink into his studio at odd hours of the day, a crazed look in his eyes whenever he finally decides to retire for the night. Still, it is rare for Gilbert to paint without venturing outdoors for references, even once.

What initially catches her eye is not the size of the canvas itself, although it is massive and stretches nearly eight handspans in length. Rather, it is the _color_ that seizes Anne’s wandering attention, and she nearly chokes with surprise to discover her likeness staring back.

Upon first glance, the work is nothing but color, an amalgamation of shades rather than the customary snapshot of life. She notes how his usual precision has been replaced by broader and heavier strokes, showcasing the suggestion of shapes rather than the definition that’s become his renown.

Looking at her portrait feels like looking at a memory itself; accurate from a distance, but fuzzier when inspected up close: Anne’s seated on a chair that could very well be a throne, suffused in warmth and the afternoon sun. Her hair falls in waves all the way down to her waist, every iteration of red with golds and oranges woven in. She brushes her hair while looking off to the side, eyes glued to a book the viewer can’t see, but which Anne knows exists because she remembers this scene, captured so many months ago; nothing profound in particular, just another Monday afternoon.

“What do you think?” the artist asks, materializing suddenly by her side. Anne doesn’t notice his approach, having been so mesmerized by his work. “It’s different from my usual style, right?”

“Different," she agrees, "but somehow still remarkably _you_.”

He settles onto the rocking chair and pulls Anne comfortably in his lap, nibbling at her earlobe when he admits, “As a subject, you frustrate me profoundly.”

“How so?”

He presses a kiss to her nape. “You made me discover the limits of my ability to portray and realize that reality doesn’t always fit in between such carefully drawn lines. I cannot hope to capture you in all of your changing, myriad of ways—Ophelia, a dryad, and my entire universe all in one. So I settled for your essence, some shifting impression of your soul, and drove myself mad asking which is the real Anne at her core?”

She takes his hands into her own and warms his fingers with her breath, kissing each individual one in thanks for all the magic they contain. “The Annest of Anne’s is the one by your side, who I am when we’re together, and the one you keep in your heart when we’re apart.”

“The Annest of Anne’s is in the one in my arms, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part.”

“You may now kiss the bride.” She giggles.

And Gilbert enthusiastically does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes hello, this is probably hot garbage, but it is _completed_ hot garbage. 
> 
> As always, thanks a million for sticking with me and with this story, even though it turned out to be less porn without plot and more porn with **lots of** feelings. Ha, suckers. I hope you're both horny AND sad.
> 
> And while truthfully, I'm not in love with this fic, it was still a total blast to write. Please!!!!! let me know you think bc I crave creative validation, I love you all with the passion of a thousand suns or Bash LaCroix (whichever is hotter), catch you all on the flipside, etc. etc. etc. And finally, I hope you're all reading this at a reasonable time, unlike me, who is posting at an absolutely fucked hour despite having work in the morning :) 
> 
> I am, above all else, a Big Dumb Bitch.
> 
> \- Vladimir Kireev's [AUTUMN](https://www.deviantart.com/vladimir-kireev/art/AUTUMN-688871181)  
> -[tumblr](https://bbotanyclub.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/bbotanyclub), please come and be my friend.


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